


Your Back Hand's Made Of Gold

by pulseandhaze



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: "Team Greed" flashbacks, Al is still recovering, Basically I just wanted a continuation of the show, But focused on my favorite characters and with Ed in a relationship that made sense, Canon compliant but the epilogue is dead to me, Ed and Al go to Xing, Ed and his pocketwatch are the real 'will they wont they' here, Greed (FMA) Lives, Greed is really good with his mouth, Greed still was pulled out of Father's mouth (reverse-vore) like canon, It only took 90k but we finally reached the porn congrats, Lan Fan and Greed slowburn friendship, Lan Fan is the MVP, Ling is kind of angsty but he's valid, M/M, Plenty of hurt/comfort and people withholding information, Post-Canon, plot heavy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 10:39:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 90,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16638368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pulseandhaze/pseuds/pulseandhaze
Summary: After the events in Central, everyone needs time to recover. They've lost more than they bargained for, but they're determined to keep moving forward. What Ling doesn't expect as he travels back to Xing is that he'd be haunted in more ways than one by his counterpart—the other half of his soul. He begins to be driven mad by the voices in his head, and when the reason behind it becomes clear, it's like his world is finally right again.But there will always be a malefactor who covets what others have, and when Ed catches wind of Greed's return, he finds himself wrapped up in a whole new enigma at the hands of some poor soul seeking knowledge. As Ling takes his place as emperor of Xing, Ed hopes to keep Ling out of the scene so he can focus on his duties, but what he doesn't know is that Hell itself is coming for him, and she wants Greed's philosopher's stone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an Edward/Greeling fic, there is no Greed/Ling involved in it whatsoever; it will have both Ed/Greed and Ed/Ling. No idea when updates will be. I've made that mistake in the past, but if that changes, I'll let you know!

The sky is ash. Amestris is not any better for it, but it certainly isn’t worse, and the idea that at the end of all things, this was the greatest outcome to be had—it is only a comfort for the people who have lost the most in the process.

There will be no more losing today.

But that cost… The cost of every poor or delusional decision made at the hands of the playmakers… its weight finally makes its way to the shoulders of those forced to carry it.

No one can ever prepare you for loss.

It turns naivety into horrors, and sadness into malice, and it twists you up from the inside out, until there is only oblivion. No one can prepare you for it, because by the time it’s struck you, there are no more decisions left for you to make. It’s always at the end.

Ling Yao traveled far from home, across a desert, and into a foreign country ruled by militaristic tyrants, all to achieve his goals, and as he looks down at the liquid red swirl in the bottle in his hands, he knows he has achieved them all.

He thought he was prepared for the cost. He thought his perseverance and sheer _wanting_ was enough to get him here.

And then Lan Fan lost her arm for him. And Fu his life. There is no toll too much to pay.

If that wasn’t enough, however, acquiring this philosopher’s stone was supposed to help him find himself, and put him on the path of least resistance.

Instead, he’s left cold, alone, and vacant. Is this what being a solitary soul is like? Is this how he always felt before Greed?

It’s always at the end.

May Chang isn’t so bad now that she knows he isn’t planning to leave her clan to ruin. She’d called him greedy for wanting peace in Xing, and wanting to protect everyone in their country. So be it then. That much has been proven: that greed looks good on him.

She follows him and Lan Fan after that. He feels so proud to know her—and maybe one day, if she’s willing, and when she’s older, she could take her place as another of his royal guard. Lan Fan will need someone to assist her. Someone she can trust.

It’s just another thing for him to think about that leaves him empty as they find an alchemist to assist them with Fu’s body. They have an ice box made to preserve him for the trek across the desert, so they can bury him at home when they bring the news to their clan.

Ling knows it’s tactless to ask, but he can’t help himself as the three of them stand by and watch men in blue pull the metal top over the ice box and secure it to a flat of wheels.

“Do you think he’s satisfied with himself?”

Lan Fan is startled. He realizes he hasn’t said anything to her until now, and her eyes go wide with surprise.

“I’m sorry,” Ling tries to amend.

She’s quiet for a while, and May looks at them, but she says nothing, trying to stay out of their affairs despite her concern.

Eventually, Lan Fan reaches out for him and touches his wrist. She thinks better of it a little too late, and she lets go again.

“You’re hurting just as much as I am,” she says.

The flat with Fu’s box is pushed up a ramp and into the back of a truck for transportation. From here, it’ll be taken to the supplies they were promised to cross the desert with: horses, rations, water, and salt licks.

Ling sighs heavily. “I’m just tired.” Walking forward, he wipes his hand on his pant leg and extends it to the officer who brought the truck. “Thank you,” he tells them. “Would you mind dropping us off at the hospital before delivering to the consignment point?”

“Sure thing,” they say with an understanding smile.

Ling, Lan Fan, and May climb into the back with the box.

“You can be tired _and_ hurting,” May says when most of the drive has passed in silence.

Ling looks at her once before focusing on his hands in his lap, staring at the back of his left hand until he can feel his eyes boring a hole into it. “I know.”

There are so many dead and injured that the hospital staff is hard to put a leash on. The Xing trio wander a little aimlessly, but because they don’t look injured _enough_ , no one stops to ask them if they need something, or what they’re looking for.

“Excuse me—” Ling tries, putting a finger up at a nurse flipping through a few sheets on a clipboard. She power walks past him without a word, calling out to her coworker.

“Excuse me, sir, could you—”

The second attempt ends up the same as the first and Ling looks back to Lan Fan and May with a sheepish smile. Lan Fan shrugs. They’re on the second floor by now, and Ling is not particularly great at _reading_ Amestrian, even if he can speak it, so these specialized department names are not easy to decipher for himself.

“Hey— _Watch_ it!” comes Ed’s voice clear as day from down the hall. Ling and Lan Fan share a glance.

“It’s them,” she confirms.

The door Ed can be heard from is open, but Ling stops in the hallway right before he can be seen. He hangs his head a little as he listens. “Can you at least be more _gentle?_ I get that you’re understaffed, but he’s not in the condition to handle something like this.”

Lan Fan puts a hand on May’s shoulder. “We’ll wait here,” she says. “He’s going to say goodbye.”

The eyes that look up at her are filled with a flurry of emotions, but her response is soft spoken. “I want to say goodbye, too.” May balls her hands into fists, looking around Lan Fan at Ling as he finally enters the room. Lan Fan holds her in place.

The hospital room smells sterile, but also like ash, just like the rest of the city. Ed is hooked up to an IV with fluids, but he’s out of bed and there’s a nurse leaning over Al, trying to hook him up to one as well.

“I’m sorry,” the nurse says. “His veins keep rolling— I expected them to be fragile, but just trust me. I’ll have to—” He wiggles the needle and Al winces to Ed’s horror, but the blood shows at the base of the tube. “There. All done.”

“Hey, Ling,” Al says when the nurse tapes off his port and twists on the tube for the fluids.

Ed whips his head away to the doorway as Ling smiles and waves.

“Ling…? You got here fast. We were just admitted.”

“You’re easy to track,” he jokes.

Ed narrows his eyes and looks away, mumbling. “You’ve got to be kidding me…”

“Sir,” the nurse says, throwing away the packaging for the needle and his gloves. “There can only be one visitor in here at a time, and the boys' father is staying with them.”

“Tch.” Ed rolls his eyes and leans back against his own hospital bed, folding his metal leg up under him. “Hohenheim can shove off for now.”

“No, no that’s okay,” Ling says. “I’m leaving soon. I only wanted to say goodbye." Their nurse seems to accept that, but only as much as he has the capacity to care, or to push the issue. He leaves the room without anymore of a warning.

Ed sits up straighter. Something twinges in his arm, but he doesn't pay it any mind.

"What? So soon after..." Ed responds, seemingly baffled. "Are you and Lan Fan going alone?"

"We're going to... bring Fu's body back over the desert, and bury him in Xing.” Ling nods. “We had an ice box made to preserve his body to the best of our ability, and then I will see to the empire's council when we're finished, to bring the Philosopher’s stone to their attention.” He glances out the door fleetingly, then comes a little closer. “We won’t be alone though. May will be joining us.”

“Not to belittle your abilities or anything, but isn't it a little reckless to go alone on a trek like that right away?"

Al laughs weakly. “Like you’re one to talk about acting recklessly, brother.”

He looks to Al, and knows he can’t argue with that. Especially given that if he were in Ling and Lan Fan's position, he wouldn't think twice about making the journey.

"Alright, alright," he says, then rests his eyes again on Ling, pulling back the bedsheets to tuck his legs under them. "I get it, I just wish there was something more I could do." He couldn't leave Al alone right now even if he wanted to help.

With a smile, it’s clear Ling is touched. "Like what?” he asks. “Travel an entire desert just to attend a funeral? That seems a bit excessive, even for you!

"Besides... if you joined us, I wouldn't be coming back, so you'd have to return to Amestris alone.

Al tilts his head, rubbing absently at his IV port. "What do you mean, you're ‘not coming back?'"

"Well, I told you: I'm going to become emperor, remember? That's why I came here in the first place! And it all worked out in the end.”

"Like I said, Al. When he's crowned emperor he's gonna forget aaall about us little guys to the west, isn't that right, Ling?" Ed jests, unable to stop himself from grinning just a bit.

"You got it! That's how the power vacuum works. Thanks for explaining that, Edward." It brings a laugh out of Al that has him clutching his chest.

Ling smiles, then finally sits on the edge of the bed, and his hand just so happens to fall on Ed's ankle over the covers. He keeps it there.

"I won't forget about you. I spoke with Mustang-- We're going to exchange letters to keep each other updated as far as political matters go. Would you...

"Do you want to write me?”

"Well, it's not like I won't have the time to do it.” Now that the end of the world isn’t looming over them, the weight of how much of that _time_ he has feels like too heavy of a burden to bear. If there’s anything Ed hates most, it’s feeling like he doesn’t have a purpose. “Hey—maybe after the dust settles, I'll make it that way for a visit. I'll make sure to drop in unexpectedly. Maybe through a window?” He wasn't going to let that go. “A skylight? Squeeze my way through an embrasure? I guess it depends how fancy of a palace you have there.

“You’re not leaving tonight, are you?”

The words make Ling’s stomach drop.

"Yeah. We were planning to. We have a long journey ahead of us."

"Please be careful, okay?" Al says. His voice is ripe with concern.

Ling smiles, but it’s for Al more than anything. "I think I can handle it. What kind of future leader would I be, if I couldn't handle a little sand?” He pats Ed's ankle, then pushes off the bed to stand up again, fixing to leave. “And… Ed…”

There is a pregnant pause as he searches for the right words. There are too many of them, and they’re drowned out by the silent vortex in his head. The silence left by Greed, and the silence left by the well of souls that shared his mindscape for the past few months; a swathing emptiness that suffocates him entirely.

He finds he can’t hear himself think.

“Alphonse!”

May has clearly talked her way out of Lan Fan’s autocracy. She rushes into the hospital room and stops just short of Al’s bed, hand curled up at her chest as she takes in his weak form again. A frown tugs at her mouth and she shuts her eyes tight before she climbs up onto the foot of the bed.

“May, I didn’t know you were here. Thank you for coming to see me.”

“I have to go back to Xing, but I promise we’ll see each other again!” she says.

“I believe you,” Al replies, expression soft. Ed softens as well, watching his brother. And when he looks back to Ling, curious and looking for resolution, he only sees the back of his torn clothes and his disheveled hair leaving the hospital room.


	2. Chapter 2

Greed squats low and picks up another rock big enough to fit in the palm of his hand. The forest is loud with squawking birds this early in the morning, and if they’re going to find a town to scrounge up a real dinner tonight, they need to head out soon.

He eyes the tawny rabbit by the big forking tree again and grimaces at it. It’s a fat thing with beady eyes. It looks like it’s eating well, and he wonders where it’s getting its food from. Rabbits just eat grass and leaves, right? Probably not a lead.

He chucks the rock hard.

“What the hell are you doing?” that Fullmetal kid asks from somewhere behind him.

Greed looks his way, and his shoulders slouch in bewilderment. “…Huh?” he says lamely.

“We’re not that desperate yet. Trust me, if it gets to the point we need to start hunting rabbits, I’ve got us covered. If you’re hungry, we found a few cans of food under the—”

“I wasn’t hunting it,” Greed says. He tilts his head slowly, a little like a dog responding to a peculiar sound. He finds himself testing Ed, and he reaches just as far as his squat will allow him, and picks up another rock, all the while staring Ed down. And then he throws it.

It hits the tree near the rabbit and the animal bounds away in a panicked flurry, kicking up fallen leaves in its retreat.

“Will you stop that!” Ed crosses his arms defiantly, then shakes his head, clearly irritated.“Geez, you’ve got _terrible_ aim.”

Greed sighs, stands, and straightens out his jacket. He looks at Ed for a moment, then past the safe house, out over the trees, and in the direction where the light of the morning sun is shining down on them.

“I _said_ , ‘I wasn’t hunting it.’ There’s a road not too far from here, right? I was just trying to scare it off.”

Ed clicks his tongue. And he stares. It takes him a moment to recover.

“…Sure,” he says, and he waits for a punchline, but Greed just stares at him in return, like he’s expecting something more as well. “Yeah, let’s… We should get going.”

\--

Ling has vivid dreams. He always has, ever since he was a kid. His father, Shih Huangdi, was always a looming shadow of nightmares; a tyrant who had no regard for anyone but himself, and the source of fear for many members of his clan. At times, that hatred would boil up, and Ling would be the one to suffer the consequences of his father’s actions, whether it was through aggression from waring clans, or from outrage within his own.

He dreamt of all this, but he also dreamt with the same striking, authentic details about pork chow mein and the rouladen dish he had in Ed’s hotel room—the savory bacon flavor and the pickled red cabbage…

He dreams about Lan Fan and Fu—sparring with them early in the morning, enjoying meals with them, and the jokes they had between them that no one else would understand. He dreams about Ed—the good and the bad—being lost in the pit of Gluttony’s stomach, and the blood, oh, the sea of blood that never seemed to cease, but also Ed’s warmth by his side, and his voice, always a stubbornly reassuring light in the darkness.

But he can’t say he’s ever had a dream before that was just a bonafide _memory_ played on repeat, like this one was. He knows it’s Greed’s memory, and not his own, even if he could see it happening when it did.

He remembers that moment, and how easy it was for Ed to accept that Greed wasn’t just another ruthless fiend of a man. Edward trusted so easily and so fully, and he was willing to bring anyone into his fold, even if that meant taking a homunculus for a friend.

Greed liked animals. A _lot_. He was always particularly fond of dogs and snakes, and he’d joked to Ling once that he pretended not to know what meat was made of, but that it wasn’t going to stop him from eating it either way.

And for the first time in a long time, Ling wakes up with tears in his eyes. He misses Edward, and he misses his clan, but most of all, he misses Greed.

“I never was strong enough,” Ling chokes out in a hushed whisper, miles and miles from Amestris, part way across an ever-changing expanse of nothing but yellow and white flecks.

“My lord…?” Lan Fan’s voice calls out to him. She sounds groggy from sleep, but she’s always been in tune with him, even when he wishes she wouldn’t be.

He takes a deep breath, trying to be as quiet about it as he can. He tries to quell his silent weeping. Regulate his breathing.

“I’m alright,” he lies. “I forgot how cold it was at night here. The desert sand really absorbs anything, doesn’t it?”

“It will absorb a whole person, if they’re not careful.”

“Oh, ominous.”

He can hear her mumble something else, and he smiles fondly at her languid shuffling as she rolls over again. Ling gives it a moment, then he pushes the blanket off him and leans forward to sit on his knees, watching her for a while to make sure she’s going back to sleep.

Moving out of the tent, he can instantly feel the cold chill of the desert’s night. If a wanderer didn’t get blisters in the day, they would surely freeze to death at night if they didn’t take all the precautions to avoid it.

He rubs his hands together and resists the urge to heat them up with his breath, wary of getting too much moisture on them.

And then, there she is, unable to help herself, and just as stubborn as him.

“You should be resting,” Lan Fan tells him, rubbing one eye with her right hand.

“I don’t know if I can. I have a lot on my mind.” He nods to the tent, where May still lays. “She’ll notice a disruption in our chi, and she’ll wake up as well. I want both of you to save your strength.”

“What about you?” She asks. “Without the homunculus, you’re just as susceptible to this journey as we are.”

He knows she doesn’t mean any harm in it, but Ling can’t help but clench his teeth hard and look away.

“Master… Ling…?”

The wind dances through them, hissing and heaving, and it feels a bit like the contractions in his chest. He closes his eyes. Again, it’s too much.

And then he can hear something more… not quite the wind, but something like a real, tangible whisper. It’s hard to make out what it’s saying, so distant and soft-spoken.

_Was so afraid… Taken… All… I can’t find my son… My last day… Would she be… happy?_

It’s so quiet. It’s so quiet, but so _clear_ , and he jolts his head up to look around at the dunes surrounding them—the empty expanse and the way the air looks like ocean waves on the horizon as the wind picks up and creates little flurries of sand in the dark.

“Did you hear something?” Lan Fan asks. She reaches for a knife, gripping the hilt of it backwards, stance widening.

When he doesn’t respond, she’s on her knees in no time, a hand on his back. “Master Ling— Answer me—”

He feels like he’s in a daze when he comes back to himself, and the wind is just wind again. The silence is just silence. Again.

“He’s… really gone.” A choked sob escapes him. “Isn’t he?”

Lan Fan turns her head just over Ling and moves close to him, pulling his head against her chest as she stares at the chilled silver coffin of her grandfather. She furrows her brow, and it takes everything in her not to give into the spike of grief that shoots up her spine. With her hand on Ling’s head, she cards her fingers through his hair and tugs at the band holding it up until it slips out, letting his hair cascade down over his shoulders.

“You can’t blame yourself, my lord,” she tells him softly, and she continues that slow, stroking motion, even if it feels like it’s just on the border of _wrong_ , she has to cross this line for him. Right now, he needs her strength in a way she wasn’t trained for.

“It _is_ my fault.” Ling brings his hands to his face, needing the pressure. Wanting to tug and punch and _scratch_ these unwanted feelings from his mind. “I should have told him how I _felt_. I should have told him that without him I’m not _me_. Why didn’t I just say those words?? Why did I have to act like I was in control— It— It didn’t _matter_. He was my _friend_ , and I let him down, just like everyone else did.”

Realization.

It clicks, what this is all about, and that maybe it was _never_ about Fu. Lan Fan doesn’t know if she’s angry, and she doesn’t have time to think too much about it, because Ling is _crying_ , and she just wants to wrap him up and tell him it’s okay.

But it’s not okay.

How can he sit here and shed tears over the loss of that demon— Over a creature that was born of the same ilk that killed her grandfather and tried to destroy the world right before their eyes?

She doesn’t hate Greed. She knows it’s not hatred she feels for him, even if he knew what he was and knew exactly what he was doing. She’s grateful that he protected Ling, and Edward, herself, and May. She’s grateful that he was there to make the fight a little easier. To take charge when no one else knew how.

But that cannot, and does not, change what he was. It doesn’t change the fact he _stole_ Ling’s body and masqueraded as him for _months_ , ran off on his own, and put Ling’s life in danger countless times. It doesn’t change the fact he flirted shamelessly with her, in _that_ body, disrespected her, and treated her like a child.

“But you _are_ still you,” Lan Fan says. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. And that’s not going to change.

“Maybe you need a philosopher’s stone to prove yourself to your father’s advisors, but you will never _need_ that power to prove yourself to our people. You wouldn’t be alive today if you weren’t _more_ than capable of the things you set out to do.”

He’s still sobbing against her, hands at his face like he thinks he can force the tears back in his eyes.

She continues. “You… had that power for a while, and it made you feel invincible. But it’s your heart and your _integrity_ that make you truly powerful.”

Ling wipes his face with the back of his sleeve, then grabs her wrist, looking into her face with gleaming red eyes. “It’s not about the power… Lan Fan…

“I feel… so… alone.”

And that makes her ache for him, but she doesn’t agree, and she certainly doesn’t understand.

“You’re not alone.” He closes his eyes again. “Please, look at me,” she says. And then she repeats it more clearly, emphasizing each word. “You’re not alone.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Edwaaaard!”

Ed nearly drops the weight in his right hand. Major Armstrong always has that effect on him—his cadence produces such a fight or flight response within him, it nearly brings his blood to boil. He backs away before he can even see the large tower of a man in the doorway, and he looks to Al and Hohenheim for help.

Hohenheim has his arms around Al, trying to stabilize him during Al’s physical therapy session. He frowns at the sweat drop on his son’s forehead, glasses reflecting the light unhelpfully.

“Useless father…” Ed wheezes out when Hohenheim doesn’t say anything, and then the glimmer and gleam of a too-large shirtless man is approaching him and he has… books?

“Colonel Mustang asked me to bring these to you. He wasn’t sure if you’d want this one.” He pulls out a dark green hardback, showing the title, which Ed can’t read. “It’s entirely in Xerxesian.”

“What… are all those for?” Hohenheim asks. He guides Al to the plastic chair beside the balance beam, and Al leans forward onto his knees, folding his body so he can drop his head and rest a little.

“It’s nothing,” Ed says, gathering up the collection from Armstrong’s grasp, but seven books is a bit much for him to hold at once comparatively, so it takes him a sloppy moment. “I just wanted to learn about Xerxes, that’s all.”

“And you didn’t think you could ask me?”

Ed nearly drops one of them, but Alex helps him out and shoots a big grin in Hohenheim’s direction as he saves his son from the embarrassment.

“I didn’t _want_ to ask you. I’m surprised that didn’t cross your mind.”

“Hey, now… I just want to help.”

Ed sighs. “Thanks, Major,” he tells Alex, and then he moves to the floor beside Al’s seat. His brother looks up at him once before hanging his head again, and Ed pats him on the knee supportively before trying to sort through his new stash of information. “Look— if there’s anything I want to know that these don’t answer, you’ll be the first person I tell. Okay?”

“Sure, but, uh…”

Hohenheim’s sentence trails off, and Ed doesn’t ask further about it.

“Edward,” Armstrong says again, watching him thoughtfully. “When you get a chance, the Colonel would like to talk to you.”

“Uh-huh. I’m sure he would. You can tell him I’m not an alchemist anymore, and when you jog his memory of _that_ , he’ll change his mind.”

“No…” he responds uncomfortably. “That’s… actually what he wants to discuss with you.”

Ed sits back from where he’s kneeling and turns to look at Alex, hands falling on his lap. “I see. What: does he want to take my pocketwatch to go along with my lost dignity? I’m sure he’d love to kick me while I’m down.”

With a chuckle, Alex folds his arms over his chest. “He has your best interest at heart, I can assure you.” Ed doesn’t… _not_ believe him. “I should be on my way.”

“Alright, I’ll hit him up later today.” And then he adds, muttering, “It’s not like it’s a far walk.” As Alex leaves the room, Ed also says, “Thanks again, Major. Seriously.”

Alex softens and salutes by the door. “Anything for you boys. Just let me know.”

The assortment of books has his attention for a while. Al finally makes himself at home on the floor, and Hohenheim ends up fetching him some juice and a package of crackers to re-energize him.

There are two history books, a biography of some man named Bahar Taghavi, a book on the basics of crafting alchemy and energy redirection, a book that seems to illustrate what an Amestrian historian _thinks_ the government of Xerxes was like in its heyday, a soft back on the ruins of Xerxes (that sounds more like tourist trap rhetoric than anything), and of course, the green book he can’t read.

“I’m going out for a while,” Ed tells Al and Hohenheim. Of course it’s the volume on alchemy in his hands, but he’s only on the tenth or so page when he decides he wants some fresh air and to be on his feet.

“Edward—” Hohenheim starts, but it’s so easy to dismiss him.

“I told you:” He doesn’t look at his father, but he doesn’t sound irritated this time. “If there’s anything I need to know, I’ll ask you. I mean it.”

He’s not sure why Hohenheim seems disappointed by that answer, but he honestly just wants to read… He shouldn’t have to explain himself to be allowed to do so.

Ed sees official military vehicles as well as big construction trucks when he makes it outside. It hasn’t exactly been peaceful around Central in the past few weeks, but he’s only started hearing the ruckus of rebuilding since the weekend began. He thinks to himself that he’d be more than willing to help if he still had his Portal of Truth. Then, he thinks twice.

“I kicked that bastard’s ass,” Ed mutters to himself, book held open by his thumb and his shoulders slouched. “Maybe I _deserve_ a break.”

His eyes skim the page for a moment while he thinks on it, but he doesn’t absorb any of the information, a little lost in thought. Until something peculiar catches his attention.

_‘…This power stems from the Sun. The Xerxesian belief that the Eye of the Sun protects and guides, and moreover, grants ultimate power, is believed to be the first spark that lit the flame of alchemy as a scientific form.’_

Where has he heard this before…?

_‘It was thought by the citizens of Xerxes, or at least those in positions of raw power, that they could absorb the Eye of the Sun and become one with the universe, obtaining all the knowledge that has, and will ever, be known.’_

Of course it reminds him of Father, which he’d much rather not think about, but _Liore_ also comes to mind. Father Cornello was a nutcase, sure, but his whole thing was about a Sun God, right? Leto.

It all makes _sense_ , what with how Father was constructing his plan with the crest of blood. That homunculus was always a narcissistic snake, which was, ultimately, his downfall in the end. The idea that ‘Leto’ was really just another way for Father to boast about his own abilities and scoff in the face of mankind really rubs Ed the wrong way.

He kind of wishes he could bring the guy back to life, just so he had the chance to turn him to dust all over again.

_‘The Xerxesians believe the Eye of the Sun watches over humanity eternally and forever, and the planet rotates solely for its viewing capability. This Sight influences everything: it is why the body feels energized during the day, and why crime rates are higher during the night. Without the Eye of the Sun, an empire would have no power and would swiftly descend into chaos.’_

Edward finds himself disappointed when the author begins to explain how to craft a transmutation circle. She goes on about how certain symbols are drafted and where their designs stem from, and he can’t help but feel like he’s being lectured about how to tie his shoes.

There’s the part of him that feels like he has to finish the book now that he’s started it, and there’s the part of him that wields a sixth sense there’s nothing left for him to learn in this one. When the latter wins out, he closes the book on page sixty-two, and tucks it under his arm.

It takes him a good ten minutes afterwards to realize why he’s so angry.

Grief is never something that hits him right away. There’s always shock first—not denial the way every flow chart and military counselor he’s talked to wants to say there is. He’s always said the Kübler-Ross model doesn’t apply to him. There’s the shock, and then a misguided attempt to ignore it, and then the _anger_. The anger that remains and never, _ever_ leaves.

Acceptance is not a solution. Not an _option_.

Only anger.

Hughes. Nina. Fu. Not to mention the entire Ishvalan war, and the death of the child that started it all.

He _blames_ the Homunculus for these things, and that anger can _never_ grow to become acceptance. Not for him.

Ed has his teeth pressed together hard in his mouth as he thinks of the sick fantasy of punching holes through the graphite of Father’s body all over again—the anger it had taken the first time around, born in the ashes of the _new_ death of a friend, generating all the adrenaline he needed to finish that fight.

_‘No, Greed—!”_

_Like drilling his fist through packed ash, and something more—something solid, yet not at all—until it erupts with thousands of souls into the sky, and Edward doesn’t know where they’ve gone, only that this_ thing _has taken them. That this_ thing _has taken his friend; and it had aimed to take so many more._

\--

Darius unfastens his watch and Heinkel tilts his head as he gets into the man’s space, furrowing his brow.

“It’s not broken, is it?” Heinkel asks.

“No… it just does this sometimes. It’ll stop working, and I have to reset it.”

Ed glances up at them from where he’s sitting with his back against the wall. He’d offered his services as an alchemist in exchange for a room to stay the night, and the man who allowed them into the house had given him a book full of crossword puzzles.

He’d been drowning the chimeras out for about an hour now, focusing on his game.

“If it stops working and you have to fix it, then it’s broken,” Heinkel says quite forthrightly, pointing to the watch.

The door opens and Ling—or his body, Ed hastily reminds himself—joins them in the bedroom, arms folded at the back of his head. He raises a brow at the two when Darius removes the small, round battery from the back facing and blows on it.

“H-h-heeey,” Greed says, smirking and eyeing the thing with an instant fascination. It’s plated in rose gold, with a chronograph setting, and the leather band looks like black snake scales. “That’s a nice watch.”

“Thanks,” Darius says. “I’ve had it for a few years now. It’s never done me wrong.”

“It’s broken,” Heinkel reminds him.

“It has some quirks.”

Greed is all charm. “If it’s broken, I wouldn’t mind taking it off your hands for you.”

Ed closes the book on his pen and puts it up on the nightstand right beside him, eyes trained on this exchange like he’s watching a tennis match.

“What do you mean…?” Darius asks.

“Well, you could give it to me, and you can get a better one later.”

“Uh…”

Greed drops his posturing and puts a hand out in a gesture that says, _‘I’ll take that.’_ “I want it. So… what do you say? Help a guy out?”

Darius blinks, so utterly dumbfounded that he’s not sure how to handle the situation. He glances over at Ed in a cry for help, but before Ed can say anything, Heinkel says, “He really doesn’t owe you anything, you know.”

“Yeah,” Darius finally replies. “I don’t want to. It’s my watch.”

Greed pauses. He tilts his head. And then he shrugs half-heartedly, with one shoulder. “Alright, fair enough,” he says.

“…What…? That’s, uh… What?”

“What, what?” Greed responds. He moves over to sit on the end of the bed, hands on either side of him. “I kinda jumped the gun on that one, I’ll admit. I could’ve at least asked without making it sound like a demand. That was my bad.” He puts a hand to his heart. “It won’t happen again.”

The side-eye glance Darius and Heinkel give each other last for a moment longer than Ed is really comfortable with.

“What kind of game are you playing at?” Edward asks. He crosses his legs and leans his elbows on his knees, and Greed has to turn awkwardly to look at him from his position.

“Yeah, I mean…” Darius pops his watch battery back in. “You know… Isn’t your name _Greed_?”

“Ohhh, I get it,” Greed replies. “You think I’m just going to take your belongings for myself. Well, that’s not accurate to how I function. Material goods aren’t the only thing I _want_ , even if they _are_ nice to have. And it certainly isn’t now, nor will it be, I imagine, any secret that I want your watch.

“But apart from that, I happen to desire your respect as well as your loyalty. That’s not exactly something I can take. I have to _earn_ it.”

Ed huffs under his breath. “You probably shouldn’t tell people you’re _trying_ to earn their respect. Doesn’t that seem insincere to you?”

“No, not really.” Greed repositions so he can see Ed better, and he studies his face, feeling challenged. “What about being straightforward with people would seem insincere?”

“It’s not about being straightforward. It’s about putting it in their minds that you’re trying to do them a favor by not stealing from them, or not demanding from them. That’s not how you build respect or trust.”

Greed narrows his eyes in consideration, and he doesn’t say anything for a moment. The fire in Ed’s eyes doesn’t go out, and he doesn’t back down.

“Let me ask you this, kid. How did _you_ earn their respect?”

“Well… I…” Ed rubs at the junction where his automail meets his thigh, pressing his thumb into the scar tissue there. “I guess I saved their lives.”

Heinkel crosses his arms, chest puffing out a little proudly. “Yeah. And then we saved his back.”

Greed takes his eyes off Ed, turning slowly to regard the two chimeras, and then he gestures with his head in a small circle—not quite a nod, but something of a similar nature.

“I guess that _would_ do it, huh?”

\--

Reflecting on that conversation, and what it meant now, with this outcome, is like reopening the wound.

“That didn’t make me respect you, Greed,” Ed mumbles to himself, rubbing the hand of his delicate arm, massaging the tendons there with a pressure that calms him, but not by much.

He knows he promised the Major he would speak with Mustang today, but he doesn’t think he can face him in this state.

His voice wavers, and he squeezes his thumb tightly where he’s trying to pacify the sudden spike of emotion. “You didn’t have to sacrifice yourself to earn our respect.”


	4. Chapter 4

“We ensure the departed soul has passed peacefully into the next life, and with this fire of renewal, we will offer him the option of the material goods he had in this one.”

Of the handful of times Ling has heard voices in the very back of his mind, he could only understand what they were saying to him twice. Every other time, it was like the words were in an entirely different language. Or perhaps, they always were; now that he thinks about it, the words themselves don’t seem to matter—they’re more like a dream, or thoughts shown in the form of visuals, or raw _feelings_ amplified.

All he knows is they aren’t _his_ feelings, and he clutches the small bottle in his black jacket coat as he watches his great uncle Li Yu wrap Lan Fan in an embrace. She shies away from it with masterful tact, and she holds the elderly man at arms length, trying to be respectful of his mourning. He and Fu were good friends, after all.

 _The world is dark_ , one of the voices murmurs, and Ling starts, eyes opening wide. He can’t help but blame the philosopher’s stone. He knows it must be calling out to him—he knows it would be best to consume it and have it done with—but there’s something that holds him back.

He’s not ready to commit to that power again, even if it can only bring good things for him now.

Lan Fan has an intricate torch lit for her, and she holds up pieces of coarse bamboo paper, setting the sheets aflame before releasing them to burn up as they fall to the ground. The spirit money fades as the light burns it away, granting Fu wealth in the afterlife, and Ling hangs his head again, trying to force himself to ignore the words he very much knows he heard.

He quietly curses himself for bringing the stone with him to the funeral. There is no safe place in this entire world he could have put it, and he knows that, but somehow it still feels like a bad omen.

_I should have told him how I felt._

It’s not Ling’s thought, but it _could_ be. It’s certainly something he _has_ thought, and something he’s even said. Living like this feels like such cruel punishment.

Everyone wants power, but no one is ever willing to tell you the price they paid to acquire it.

He finds himself gripping the stone’s bottle so tightly, he’s afraid of shattering it, so he pulls a shaky hand out of his jacket pocket. His hands are tremoring uncontrollably.

And then, for a moment, the world is white.

\--

“How much is that?”

Heinkel yawns, probably moreso from hunger than exhaustion, and he eyes the coin in his hand lazily. “About, hmm… eighty cenz.”

Greed is taken over with a horrified expression and the posturing to match. “That’s _it?_ We aren’t gonna get something to eat with some… loose pocket change.”

“I have—”

“I swear, if you say, ‘a used train ticket,’ I will maim you.”

“No.” Heinkel’s hand closes around the coins. “I was just gonna say I have an idea.”

“Shoot.”

Greed kicks at the ground aimlessly, then grinds his foot into it, listening to the gravel of the street against his shoe.

“The meatball place has a dumpster outside and I saw some cats hanging around there. Now… my animal instincts say they prolly feed ‘em the scraps, if you catch my drift.”

The _audacity_. The sheer rock-bottom desperation that concept emulates makes Greed’s mouth drop open and he smacks Heinkel across the chest. “You have your idea privileges revoked,” he says.

Darius makes a face. “It’s not like you have a better idea,” he says, defending Heinkel without question. Greed is becoming more used to them tag teaming against him by now, but he has quite a bit of experience getting people to let their guard down.

“I _do_ have a better idea, actually. We can just _steal_ from the kitchen. It won’t be hard.”

Darius checks his watch. Ed said he’d be back around six.

“Ed’s not gonna like that,” Heinkel tells Greed, but Greed is already walking backwards towards the restaurant, and he has his arms out wide, demanding them to make a choice.

“If you don’t come, you don’t get to eat whatever I find,” he says. “But at least _one_ of us is eating well tonight.”

It’s effective enough. Not like it’s a hard decision. They worked for _Kimblee_ , after all, so a bit of theft is child’s play compared to the things they found themselves doing under the crimson alchemist’s command.

Greed reminds them that they’re fugitives, that they have no other choice, and that if they’re caught off guard while they’re starving, they’ll be at a disadvantage. He considers taunting them with Ed—telling them they’re pathetic for following some kid’s orders—but he stops himself short. It’s simply not… true. That boy is a lot of things, but ‘not worth following’ isn’t really one of them.

The rest of the taunting though: that gets things done.

Greed’s grinning like there’s no tomorrow. They swiped an order that was for pickup, and Darius is reading off the list that was sitting on the top box. They have homemade pasta—carbonata—an order of twelve garlic meatballs, roasted cauliflower and spinach, and five breadsticks.

“Hey, what time is it?” Heinkel asks.

After putting the scrap of paper back in the dinner bag, Darius checks the time. “Six-fifteen.”

Oh, no. Ed said he’d be back at six.

They try to book it back to the house, going in the back door like they were instructed to by their new, temporary matron—a tall, older woman with a yappy dog. There’s barking when the door opens, and she shushes him soon after.

Darius opens the bedroom door with a panic that is evident on every inch of both himself and Heinkel. Greed can sense their anxiety, and he kind of squints at it like it carries a bad odor. It’s clearly a relief to them to see that Ed had waited for them there, his golden eyes focusing on the trio from where he is on the bed, a bit of a disappointed pout on his face.

But nothing could have prepared Greed for _this_.

Edward’s laying on his back, his sweatshirt off, with his head and arms upside down off the side of the bed. Most of his automail is visible in just his t-shirt, and his hair is out of its ponytail, all free and reaching for the hardwood floor in waves. It’s so snake-like.

Just like any memory, the mind can be set off to remember something with the right trigger. He’s still fuzzy about his past ever since seeping his way into Ling’s body, but there’s no doubt about how important to him the people he used to keep around were.

The blond hair doesn’t help—it’s just like hers—and when he looks at Ed like this, Greed finds himself just standing hopelessly in the doorway, eyes locked on Edward with emotions he couldn’t sort out even if he wanted to.

“Where have you guys been?” Greed thinks he hears Ed say, but all he can do is watch the way his mouth moves, and there’s ringing in his ears, and it’s like, for a moment, Martel isn’t _really_ gone.

Ling can see the chimeras in a hazy outline as they unpack the food and explain themselves, apologizing. He thinks he can use this opportunity to take his body back from Greed, but seeing him freeze up and lose himself to thought makes him sympathetic in a way that Ling doesn’t expect.

He gives Greed a moment before he speaks.

‘It’s okay to miss them,’ Ling says.

The response is instantaneous. ’Get the hell out of my mind.’

‘Technically:’ And Ling has a bit of a lilt to his inner voice. ‘This was _my_ mind first. And since I’m still here, you’re stuck with me.’

He might not be using this to his advantage to take over his body, but he is using Greed’s emotions to get some real answers out of him. Besides, he’s not sure what the benefit to being in control right now would be, anyway.

‘I do miss them,’ Greed says. ‘You happy? There’s nothing I can do about it now, and I didn’t even get to see them off to— to wherever the hell they are.’

He’s still looking at Ed as Darius and Heinkel are lectured by him. It’s almost ridiculous how the kid can give this self-righteous speech from his upside down position, and yet all Greed can think about is crawling over him and— or, not him, but Martel, rather—and kissing her. The way her legs would slither around him on the way back up and she’d cling to him as he stood again.

‘You really loved her, didn’t you?’ Ling asks.

When Ed finally sits upright to grab a breadstick, Greed looks away, leaning on the door with his arms crossed.

‘I think you’re completely missing the part about how I’m not human.’ But Greed scrunches up his nose a little. ‘In reality, love is just a strong, positive emotion, generally stemming from a feeling of pleasure. So, sure, I love all my possessions. Just not the way you mean it.’

He doesn’t challenge the sentiment, because he knows if Greed says that, it’s truly what he believes, whether Ling thinks he’s wrong or not. ‘When you say you ‘didn’t get to see them off,’ do you mean a funeral?’ he asks instead.

‘I guess. I don’t know. _Something._ Like I said. It’s too late now.’

‘It might not be.’

“Greed?” Ed says. Half of his breadstick is gone, but Greed hadn’t seen him eat it. “Helloooo? Are you even listening to me?”

_Ling?_

_Ling??_

_\--_

“Master Ling??”

When Ling comes to, he’s on the ground, Lan Fan supporting his head with a hand. His great uncle is kneeling beside him, and they share a relieved look when Ling opens his eyes.

“What happened…?” He asks. He rubs the back of his head, and even though it doesn’t hurt, it feels like it _should_.

“You passed out,” Lan Fan explains. She seems concerned about his movement, eying where he’s touching his own hair with his fingers.

“You fell and hit your head, my boy,” Li Yu adds. “Did you have a dizzy spell?”

“I thought you were bleeding.” Lan Fan raises a hand and he can see what is surely blood on the tips of her first two fingers. She seems surprised to see it’s real. “Or, you were. Or— Let me see, again.”

She moves his head forward slowly. Li Yu watches with partial concern, partial curiosity, but then he stands and gestures for the small crowd surrounding him to part ways.

“Please return to your places and allow your energy to ebb and flow,” he says. “I’ll find Ling some water, and then we’ll continue the ceremony. I’m sure he’s merely exhausted from his journey.”

In her confusion, Lan Fan searches for his head wound for a good thirty seconds. Ling has to reach up to secure her by the wrist, and he makes steady eye contact with her. “I’ll be fine,” he promises. “I don’t know what got into me, but—”

“You’re _not_ fine. You haven’t _been_ fine,” she argues. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Lan Fan.” Ling’s voice is velvet. It slows her breathing. “Do you still have faith in me?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course I do. I only wish I knew what course to take to… to…” And now she’s the one who’s crying, not him, in the same way that he does—that steady stream of tears that takes you by surprise.

“Oh, Lan Fan…” Reaching out, Ling takes her left hand and wipes the blood off on his shirt. It petrifies her for long enough until the tears cease and she looks around to make sure no one is watching. “This is the one path you cannot take with me.”

 _I never asked for this_ , one of the voices says. And this time, he really doesn’t know if it’s his own.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DID end up changing the title of the fic after all, and this one fits much better and is here to stay. Highly recommend "Troublemaker" by Grizfolk for EdGreed, as this is where the title stems from.

Wiping his hands on his pants, Ed yanks open the door to the hospital room, and he sighs a little before crawling up onto the bed. He’s technically not being taken care of by the staff anymore—he hasn’t for a week and a half—but they didn’t place Al in a new room strictly so that Ed could stay with him and be more comfortable. As comfortable as a hospital bed _can_ be.

“Major Armstrong stopped by again,” Al tells him, looking up at Ed over a small pile of ‘get well’ cards from the senior staff, and a few from the hospital care team. “I guess you never went to talk to the colonel a few days ago?”

“Geez, a guy can’t go to the bathroom without coming back to being told he’s flubbing his responsibilities, huh?”

Al has a small smile. “Sorry, brother.”

“Nah, don’t sweat it.”

He’s not really trying to avoid Mustang, he’s just trying to avoid what having a conversation with him would mean. His entire life is upside down now, and it’s been easy enough to ignore while he’s been taking care of Al. Not having alchemy… that’s a big deal to him, but it doesn’t mean he wants to think about it, or worse, talk about it with his superior.

It’s not that he regrets his actions, either. Ed has always been determined to live a life without regrets. After you partake in alchemy’s one and only taboo, it’s really only a downhill battle from there!

But the idea that he has to learn to live his life without the thing that guided him through every twist and turn seems daunting. Where there was an up, alchemy was always his staircase, and where there was a down, it cushioned his fall. Alchemy was never his teacher—he figured things out on his own, and for that, he had intuition and science to thank. Even so, it was a big part of him. A part that was gone.

He realizes that Ling probably feels a similar way to how he does right now. He wishes he wasn’t hundreds of miles away over land that couldn’t be traversed by train. It surprises Ed how much he misses having Ling around. Ever since the guy showed up, like a stray cat with the appetite of an elephant, he’d been following Ed around relentlessly. It became this arbitrary, yet somehow predictable, routine, and that ended overnight, just like his ability to use alchemy, and just like his unachievable life’s quest, and just like his plan to save the entire world.

It was all over, and that felt surreal now.

“Ah, I guess I should just get it over with,” Ed tells Al. His brother had resumed reading the cards, so Ed swings his legs back over the side of the bed to leave again. “Want anything on my way back?”

“Nope! Just tell Riza hi for me!”

He paces in the hall a few doors down from Mustang’s room for an embarrassingly long time.

Even glossing over how he feels about the outcome of his alchemic abilities with Al, while Al is in this state, can only serve to be a negative thing. Maybe it would relieve some of the pressure on Ed, but that wouldn’t be fair to his brother, and after everything, Ed just wants Al to feel like there’s hope for the future again.

No doubt he would blame himself, and that’s not Ed’s intent. He’s sure Al will understand how complicated it is one day, and hell, maybe he’d even understand immediately, but Ed is wary to take the risk.

“Hey, big guy,” Breda says, coming to a stop at Mustang’s door. “You coming by for a visit?”

“Oh— Lieutenant—”

“You’re not interrupting anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. You don’t have to feel like you’re intruding.” He opens the door wide, and Ed’s chest seizes. “See?”

Ed looks into the room, the daylight making long rectangles on the floor that stretch out into the hall they’re standing in. “Right… Thanks.”

Lieutenant Breda grins with an intensity that Ed is pretty sure is just masked hubris, entertained by Ed’s unease, but Ed walks past him into the room. Edward Elric is no coward.

“Ah, there he is,” Riza says.

“Fullmetal?” Roy asks, but his tone says he doesn’t need to see to know he’s right. Ed certainly hadn’t forgotten the colonel had lost his sight, but it’s unnerving to be so plainly reminded. “Out of all the men under my control, it _would_ be you who takes three days to find someone in the same building.”

“ _Hey!_ ” he recoils, fists for hands. “I’ve been taking care of Al! You try having your body development and nutrition put on hold for several years and tell me how you’re doing after that!”

Breda laughs, but Roy puts up a hand, smiling slightly. “Fair enough,” is all he says to that, looking satisfied. “Take a seat.”

He gestures in front of his bed, and there’s four chairs sitting there. Was this guy having a meeting or something?

“Well, I wasn’t planning on staying for long,” Ed tells him.

“And it was an _order_ , Fullmetal.”

Edward sets his jaw, teeth pressed together, but not too hard. His eyes fixate on the colonel as he strides over indignantly and does as he’s told, so used to following orders without question. He sets his ankle up on his thigh and crosses his arms.

“I’m not a state alchemist anymore, so it’s not like you can boss me around like your dog.”

“Are you resigning?”

Roy asserts the question in a way that Ed doesn’t expect, and he’s taken aback, widening his eyes a little. It gives him pause.

“Well?” Roy pushes. A few more moments lay empty between them.

“I figured I didn’t have a choice. What use for me does the military have now that I’ve shut myself off from my connexion to alchemy?”

“You’d be surprised. But the entirety of the military is still in shambles, whether we want to admit it or not. I imagine things will be like this for a while as we do our best to restore order.”

“That’s not my problem,” Ed says.

When Roy fixes him with a stare this time, it feels like he’s looking directly into Edward’s eyes. Ed stares back, and he knows Roy can feel that, too.

“No, it’s not your problem. But I’d like you to continue to work for me, if you aren’t sick of me yet.”

“Questionable,” Ed retorts.

Roy smiles a closed-mouth smile at him.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Elric. You really had me worried out there.”

The sentiment is appreciated, but it takes Edward off guard. Usually when Roy incites this kind of reaction out of him, Ed feels like he must be trying to gain the upper hand, whether because he wants something, or he just doesn’t like Ed falling into a pattern with him.

And he knows the colonel _does_ want something—he had literally just asked him for a favor several moments ago—but Ed has so much empathy for him, and he cannot right the wrong that has been done to his superior officer. His friend.

“Colonel,” Ed says, dropping his gaze to the floor. He knows both Hawkeye and Breda are watching, but this is not something he would want to hide from any of those who choose to follow Mustang forward into the flames. “The path ahead of you now… it’s going to be a challenging one. I’m afraid I can’t give you much insight into how to cope with this loss. I don’t think I ever really coped with my problems, myself, but… it does get easier.

“It’s cruel, what’s been done to you, and I’m _so_ sorry. I’m sorry no one prepared you for it. I’m sorry you didn’t know what was happening to you until it had already been done. _No_ one deserves this fate. I—I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

“But if you’re still aiming to become Fuhrer, even in light of this, I will stand by you. Well, maybe not… _by_ you, but I won’t willingly leave you to your devices and tell you you have to figure everything out yourself.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is… if you really have an idea for me, I’ll accept your offer. I only want to hear what it _is_ before I start diving in headfirst all over again. At least for Al’s sake.”

He feels lighter afterwards, like he’s reached out in a way that he didn’t know he needed. The silence after his heartfelt speech is welcomed, at least at first, and then he looks up at Riza, and she and Breda are staring at Mustang with odd looks on their faces. Their gazes shift to Ed.

It feels off somehow, and he can instantly tell there’s something missing. They know something he doesn’t.

He _hates_ not knowing things.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Roy tells him, and his smile looks kind of cheeky. Ed’s suspicions bloom until his face is souring, trying so hard to calculate what is amiss. “If you’re referring to my eyesight, it’s all taken care of! Doctor Marcoh is sorting it out as we speak.”

“…Marcoh…?” Ed says slowly, disoriented.

“Are you sure you—” Riza starts, and Roy puts up a hand to reassure her that he is, in fact, sure.

“I think I’ve proven enough times that trying to hide things from my men can only cause more strife between us. Besides, he’s bound to find out eventually.”

“Does this mean…?” But it can’t. Not after everything they’ve been through. The idea that Mustang would so willingly accept an offer like this, despite adamantly refusing to cooperate with the human transmutation is so _hypocritical_ , and it still feels like he has to be wrong. “You’re going to use a philosopher’s stone? Is _that_ what you’re doing?”

“I have instructed Marcoh to use the stone to heal Havoc's paralysis before tending to me. We’ll move forward by—”

“No!” Ed stands at that, his chair making an unpleasant scraping noise against the hospital floor from the momentum. “You can’t honestly think doing this is morally justified. Even if you become Fuhrer. Even if you save hundreds of lives, destroy poverty overnight, or cure the common cold; I don’t care what it is!”

“Edward,” Riza starts. Her voice pulls at his heartstrings, but it’s not enough.

“Using the stone is sacrificing several hundred souls, if not more. And for what—so you can see again? Can you put a price on even _one_ soul, colonel?”

Breda looks prepared, body lowering a fraction, his arms steadier at his side, ready to intervene. But Ed—he shakes his head like he doesn’t want an answer, and he says, “Suit yourself, if that’s how you feel,” then he makes his way to the door to leave.

“Should we stop him?” Riza asks calmly. Roy can tell that she’s anxious, regardless. It’s that calm voice that she forces into place when things are beyond control, but Breda is already on Edward’s tail.

“No. Let him have the time he needs,” Roy replies, leaning his head back on his pillow.

Ed isn’t sure where he wants to go, or what he aims to do. He’s seeing red, feeling the flare of wrath that can only come from betrayal, and his footsteps are quick with the steadfast desire to run.

“Ed, wait!” Breda _does_ run, but only for a short burst.

When Ed turns, he’s more of a cyclone than a person, and it makes every muscle in Breda’s body seize up. “I came here today thinking I was going to have to give up my pocketwatch,” is what Edward says, to Breda’s surprise. “But now that I’m leaving with it, I don’t think I want it anymore.”

He unclips it from his belt and tosses it haphazardly in Breda’s direction. Breda looks like he doesn’t know what to do with the thing, but along with that, he’s lost everything he planned to say as well.

Ed gives him a beat longer to figure it out, but no more than that, and this time when he leaves, Breda is left stupefied, hands grasping the pocketwatch of a man who’s no longer an alchemist, but who couldn’t forget October 3rd even if he wanted to more than anything.

The last person Ed wants to run into while he’s this emotional is, no doubt, the most likely.

Hohenheim is outside of Al’s room, his bag packed up and on his shoulder, jacket folded over one arm, ready to depart.

Ed postures himself for a standoff.

“Time to leave without saying goodbye, again?” Ed says, bitterness shining through easily in lieu of his anger.

“I was going to find you before I left. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.”

It takes the breath out of Ed. He hangs his head in guilt for the accusation. “Oh. Well. Have a safe trip.”

“Edward… I know I can never be the father I should have been. I’m not going to waste your time with empty words or excuses, because I am, in all honesty, so far beneath you.

“I only want you to know how proud of you I am. And how grateful I am that you exist.”

He can’t. Ed just can’t do this right now, no matter what it’s supposed to mean. And he’s not sure if he ever can, but right _now,_ his head is _spinning_.

“Thanks. That’s nice of you to say.”

“This is a goodbye,” Hohenheim clarifies. Ed just sniffs—because yeah, he got that. “If it’s alright with you… I’d like to hug you.”

 _No regrets_ , Ed tries to tell himself. There’s anger, and sorrow, and disgust, and so many other layered emotions that he can’t even scratch the surface of, but none of those things are felt towards his father right now, and he knows that it’s not fair to react like they are.

So he says, “Okay.”

There’s a moment where Ed fully realizes he probably needs something like this terribly, and Hohenheim thinks Ed will quickly rescind his offer, and neither of them move. And then they _both_ do, slowly, and when Hohenheim’s arms are around him, Ed drops most of his weight onto his father.

In _this_ moment, he’s a toddler again, and he doesn’t know what hatred is, and he’s not scared of what the future might hold.

It lasts much longer than Ed intends.

“I know you didn’t want my help,” Hohenheim tells him. “But I think your best bet on finding the information you’re looking for, is the one book you can’t read. The one with the green binding.”

Ed pulls back to look at him, eyes wide. “The green binding,” Ed repeats, only to show he’s taking Hohenheim’s words into consideration. “Got it.”

They both pull away.

“I would tell you to take care of Alphonse,” Hohenheim adds, taking a few uncertain steps, then turning part way to look at Ed again. “But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’ll both take good care of each other.”

Ed actually forgets his anger for a moment, and he smiles. Hohenheim smiles back.

“Hey,” Ed says. “Thanks for being there, at least at the end.”

“It was always the intention.”

Even so, they couldn’t have done it without him.

Ed watches him continue walking from there, feeling mixed up and entirely raw; everything from the events of the last thirty minutes alone are easily a full day’s worth of mental stamina burned away to nothing. He leans back against the wall and slides down it until his ass thuds against the floor with a tired _thwump_.

He’s going to have to grovel to get his pocketwatch back, isn’t he?


	6. Chapter 6

“I told your uncle we’re leaving tomorrow,” Lan Fan says. “He didn’t say anything, but I know he’s worried about you.”

“Did you ask him what he knows about the state of my father’s health?”

Ling picks up the teapot on the table he’s perched at, pouring himself more to drink. The steam warms the dryness of both his eyes and his sinuses.

“He’s no longer responsive, but he still lives. The council is anxious to make decisions when the emperor cannot administer direct orders.”

“At least he can’t give delusional ones any longer.”

“Forgive me for speaking out of line, but he was making delusional decisions _before_ he fell ill.”

Ling smiles and looks at her directly, clearly amused. “How’s that different from what I said?”

Lan Fan lets out a small laugh, and she climbs into the chair not far from him, curling her legs up underneath her. She doesn’t have her armor on, and instead she’s in a simple undershirt and breathable drawstring pants, her hair in a low, loose ponytail that hangs over her shoulder. She looks ready for bed. “Master Ling…” she starts, “Can I ask… why you haven’t consumed the philosopher’s stone?”

He’s actually surprised it’s taken her this long to ask him that directly. He sets his teacup down, but his hands are still curled around it for its warmth.

“You’re not going to like the answer.”

She nods knowingly. “I have a feeling what it is; I only wanted confirmation I was right.”

So it’s going to be like that.

Ling looks down into the dark caramel color in his cup, but he doesn’t shy away from the truth. “It feels like I’m betraying Greed by moving on so quickly,” he admits. “I don’t know if he intended to have a legacy, but I feel as if… I _am_ that legacy, and… taking another stone into my body is moving on from what we had. Rejecting our bond.” He sighs. Lan Fan can tell he’s thought about this a lot. “I know I’ll have to do it eventually. I know I’ll have to prove to the high advisors that this power comes from _me_ and isn’t something that can be used with another figurehead.

“I _know_ that.

“But still, I can’t help but put it off as long as I can.”

As she said, she knew the answer already, and yet it leaves her feeling like everything she knows is backwards. She sighs softly. “Thank you for being honest with me,” she says. “I think I’m going to get some rest, if you don’t mind.”

Ling pushes up off the table to stand, realigning the sleeve of his shirt.

“Sleep well. I’m going to visit my mother’s shrine,” he tells her.

“Oh.” Lan Fan stands as well, and she looks over to the door, close by where her armor is hanging. “I’ll get dressed.”

“That’s alright. I won’t be gone long. Just stopping by.”

Her main concern is the knowledge the clan now has of the philosopher’s stone. If that information gets out—or if there are assassins lying in wait, who may have overheard—Ling’s life could be in more danger than ever before.

“But—“

“I know what you’re thinking.” He doesn’t look at her as he pulls on his jacket. “I can handle myself. If it makes you feel better, I’ll check in on you when I get back and let you know I’ve returned.”

“My lord—” Ling tries to press the matter further, but Lan Fan stands her ground. “ _What if_ you have another episode? What if you lose consciousness and hit your head?”

When he turns to face her, his eyes hold a serious intensity that makes her fear for a moment that he’s regarding her like a child.

“It’s an order, Lan Fan. I would like to be alone. I need time to clear my head before we head to the capital tomorrow.”

And she finds the fight in her die, but her fingers curl up into fists, and her shoulders rise a bit like a cat on the defensive. Lan Fan lets him leave, staring at the door after it closes—beginning to count in her head to thirty. Half a minute is as long as she will delay herself before she begins to refasten her armor and follow after the prince.

It’s sprinkling outside. The faintest trinkle, like mist. Rain is a sign of mourning, to wash away the pain of loss and to bring forth new memories. It wasn’t raining the day of Fu’s funeral, but it’s raining now. Ling wonders if it’s a sign. He considers if he should create a shrine for Greed here in his ancestral home, but he knows it would be more fitting to make one outside the palace. Greed would like that.

 _He would like it either way,_ one of the voices says. It’s the first time they’ve ever _spoken_ to Ling, and he speeds up, his strides a little longer, his muscles a little more tense.

He mutters to himself, “What are you talking about?” He feigns ignorance in the hopes of getting a reply.

Of course there isn’t one.

Lan Fan makes sure to keep an adequate distance from her liege, trained to stay out of sight. The rain, even a light rain like this, makes it easier to shield herself from him, but there’s still very much a possibility he’ll register her presence. She puts faith in the fact that he’s been distracted more now than usual, hoping it’s enough to do the trick.

When he speeds up, she goes on alert, first considering if she’s been spotted, and then considering if there’s someone he’s trying to get away from.

Neither seem quite right, she thinks. But then, there’s a dark spot in her connexion to the world: an energized presence that feels like it wields too much power. It’s something she’s sensed with the alchemists in Amestris, some much more than others. It’s an energy like a force-field, amplified to a thousand. She remembers feeling it around Edward, but whatever he did to bring his brother back nullified it, in the end.

Ling makes it to the burial grounds, and though there hasn’t been another ghost whisper, he’s still on edge. He knows kneeling before his mother will make him feel more at peace. They cannot mar that truth.

Lan Fan watches him from the entrance gate. He sits with his legs beneath him, hands resting on his lap, and his head hung, and she knows he’s reaching out to her.It feels wrong to observe, but her task is an important one. It always will be, no matter how lost the prince becomes.

If she was her grandfather, maybe she would know the right thing to say to him.

“Are you here to observe the dead?” A deep, masculine voice from behind her asks quietly. Lan Fan opens up her stance, moving in front of the gate so she’ll be further from Ling. “Or the living?”

She doesn’t know how the woman snuck up on her, especially with her vortex-like energy, spiking unnaturally, but the voice actually comes from the man behind her. Lan Fan does a quick sweep of them both—

She feels like she recognizes the man, but she can’t quite put a finger on from where. The woman, on the other hand, is what draws her attention the most. Her dark hair is in a high braided bun, cradled behind a deep golden cloth bandana tied around her head like a headband. Her features are unnaturally sharp, and almost ill-looking, and she’s not regarding Lan Fan’s presence in the slightest. She’s looking with squinted eyes through the bars of the gate towards Ling.

Lan Fan drops her guard for a split second to turn her head to make sure he’s still there, and she’s satisfied when she sees he is, so she narrows her eyes at the newcomers.

“Please leave,” she says.

“Is this not a public graveyard?” the man asks. When the woman begins to approach, she touches the bars one at a time, and Lan Fan side-steps to stand in her way. “Naraka…” he says. “Give the man some time, will you?”

Lan Fan is close enough to see her eyes, even as they never leave Ling’s form, and now she can tell clear as day. They’re gold like the sun, with a hint of orange, shimmering even in the mist of the sky’s drizzle, and contrasting against her otherwise Xingese features. The most lively part about her.

He reaches out to take the woman by the arm, and he’s still looking at Lan Fan, if a little sheepishly.

“Forgive her,” he says. “She doesn’t talk much.” After he pulls her back by his side, he blinks up where Naraka is staring, still fixated on Ling like a beacon. “Oh… It looks like your friend isn’t doing well.”

She twists immediately to set her eyes on him again, heart-rate sky-rocketing. Sure enough, he’s still at the shrine, but he’s laying on his side, one leg underneath him at an uncomfortable angle. There in no hesitation in Lan Fan running to him.

She uses the fence for momentum, bounds over grave stones with ease, and falls to the ground beside him, instantly scooping him into her arms. Checking his head first, she assesses him for shallow breath (it’s quick), heartbeat (the same), and any injuries. There is no blood this time.

“Master Ling—” It feels like the hundredth time she’s called his name, to no avail. She takes the hand closest to her, her own shaking, and as his coat sleeve draws back, Lan Fan inhales sharply.

So faint, like the color of skin when a nail drags across it, the ouroboros symbol is present there, on the back of his left hand. It fades, then reappears, then fades once more. It _breathes_. It tries to tether itself to her lord, and appears to be failing, but indistinctly so.

And she cannot comprehend how this is possible.

She saw what happened to Greed with her own two eyes—ripped out and consumed, then torn again from that body as well. He faded into the thin air of nothingness with no will, or connexion, or alchemic immortality symbol. He is not a person. He was a concept, and a demon, and that was all.

\--

“I gotta ask,” Greed says aloud, kneeling and setting the bouquet of flowers down to unwrap them of string and tissue paper. “You have experience doing something like this, or are you just guessing your way through?”

Ling is only quiet for a moment, and Greed can feel his solemn shift. He almost considers giving the kid an out, but his curiosity wins that battle, so he waits.

‘My mother passed when I was young. Six… maybe seven? I don’t recall. I moved in with my great uncle Li Yu, and his wife Jiang. Aunt Jiang passed a year later.’

“That sucks.”

Greed separates the flowers by type: white snapdragons with the hypericum, white roses with the eryngium, and purple statice with the silver dollar eucalyptus. The snapdragons he assigns to the far right—those are for Dolcetto. He puts the statice and eucalyptus in the middle, for Roa. White wouldn’t suit him, and eucalyptus symbolizes protection, as Ling told him.

The white roses and eryngium are for Martel. He wasn’t fully listening through Ling’s flower lesson, but he knows roses are romantic, and the spiky lavender flowers mean independence or something. He liked how that sounded for her.

“Did you have other family members?” Greed asks, uncomfortable with the silence. He’s not used to the tension that comes with mourning, and he’s not really sure what to do beyond sit here in the dirt against the chill night air, staring at plants.

Ling laughs. ‘I have more family members than you might believe,’ he says. ‘Forty-two siblings, a grandmother… two cousins—that I’ve met, anyway—a niece, Sun, and of course, Fu and Lan Fan, if they count. Not that they’re related to me, but they are… found family.’

Greed’s mouth is open. It’s shock.

“Forty-two— I’m sorry. Did you say _forty two?_ ”

‘I did.’

Greed lets out a belly-gripping laugh, tilting his head back, and then he says, “Wow. Your dad’s a real whore.”

There’s this conflicted feeling that rises within Ling, because he instantly feels defensive, but he’s not sure it’s of his father, but moreso his country and its customs.

‘They’re all legitimate,’ Ling retorts. ‘My father married into each clan, and the daughter of the clans chieftains bore his children. My mother was the wife of the emperor.’

“So…” Greed touches one of the stray rose thorns the florist must have missed clipping, running his thumb over it. “If, hypothetically, I became Emperor of Xing, I’d have like, what? How many wives?”

‘Well, there are fifty clans, but—'

“Fifty wives…” Greed takes the one rose that still has a thorn, pulling it into his lap, and he regards it closely. “You think fifty wives will do, to make up for the hole you left?” he asks the rose.

Ling falls quiet. It didn’t really occur to him that Greed had been asking about Ling to avoid facing what he came out here to do. The words feel less like a personal attack. Less like a threat.

“You were all wrong for standing beside me,” Greed says after another moment of silence. “What right did I have, to ever expect you to fight for me? With all the power I have, I could have protected you a dozen times over.”

His voice slowly devolves into a whisper.

“There’s silence, now. I always did hate the quiet. That’s why.

“That’s why I kept you all around. I didn’t want to sit in the silence anymore. The silence in my head.

“I didn’t want to hear myself talk, either. And I _really_ like hearing myself talk.”

He holds the white rose like he’s determined to make it listen to him, until its too empty, and he wants it to say something in return. Anything. Ling is quiet still.

“It wasn’t about the challenge, Martel. I didn’t care how much you argued with me, or told me what you thought I should do. And I _liked_ breaking up those fights between our boys. I liked being the voice of reason, but that doesn’t mean I wanted to be right all the time.”

Ling isn’t sure what he’s talking about, but he can piece it together enough.

Greed doesn’t say anything else. They sit in quiet for a long time, and Ling gets the sense it must be well past midnight by now. He gets caught up in his own thoughts, about his mother, and about his ancestral home. His clan must be worried about him—if not for his wellbeing, then for the future of their families.

‘Ling,’ Greed says, but it’s internally this time.

‘Yes, Greed?’

‘Am I done here?’

The question takes him by surprise, and Ling realizes that Greed has pulled all the petals off the rose with the single thorn. They’re scattered on his legs and on the ground around his knees.

‘That’s up to you,’ Ling tells him. ‘If you’d like, you can say goodbye.’

Greed thumbs over the thorn again, thoughtful. ‘Nah.’The wind picks up and some of the petals get caught up in the drift, dancing away, further from him, just white spots in the darkness. ’I don’t really do goodbyes.’

\--

When Ling comes to, it’s in Lan Fan’s arms, and she’s carrying him somewhere. He tries to get a sense of his surroundings before alerting her that he’s coherent, but Greed’s words from the memory echo in his head again.

 _I don’t really do goodbyes_.

It wasn’t wholly a lie. It was only when it was someone else leaving him behind. He just never expected to be doing the leaving himself.


	7. Chapter 7

“I thought you couldn’t read that?” Al says. He’s forced himself out of bed and is slowly gathering his things. The nurses mentioned discharging him today, but he still has a long way to go in his recovery outside of hospice care.

Ed taps a pen to his lips thoughtfully, staring at the Xerxesian writing in the green book. Its pages are worn, thick, and stiff, and they sound different when he turns them, so he wonders if the book had been waterlogged at some point. It’s lucky the text was unaffected.

“I can’t,” Ed says thoughtfully. “But Hohenheim told me the information I’m looking for is in this book.” His face sours a little and he looks up, staring at nothing in particular. “Which, to be honest, makes absolutely no sense. I don’t even know what I’m _looking_ for.

“I think it’s like: a person reaches immortality, and there’s some unspoken law that they have to be uselessly cryptic from then on out. You can just say _anything_ , and as long as you sound like you know what you’re saying, and it’s vague enough, people will think you’re wise. That’s how they get by.”

“You know that saying, ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?’” Al says. Ed closes the book on his thumb, looking at his brother. “It’s probably like that. You live long enough that you get into the habit of doing things a certain way, and you don’t want anyone to know you aren’t actually learning from your experiences anymore.”

Ed scoffs, then pulls his thumb from the pages. There’s no reason to hold his place. “I never want to stop learning. I don’t see how anyone could give up on—”

Edward stops himself short. They have a visitor in the doorway, and it’s not the nurse coming to take Al’s IV out.

It’s Winry.

Ed stares. Al, who’s folding one of his blankets up, doesn’t notice at first, until he turns to look at what stopped his brother in his tracks.

“Winry,” Al says first.

“Were you two not planning to tell me you were okay?” she asks. “You could have called? I would have come right away.”

She directs her angry words at Ed, but then her gaze shifts to Al and she takes him in. _Really_ takes him in. “Oh, Al…” she says. She sets her bag on Ed’s bed by his feet, then comes to join Al where he’s standing by the suitcase he’s packing. She takes his arm first, and he knows she can see how delicate he looks by the unease in her eyes, but then she decides to hug him anyway, and even though she has to avoid the IV line, her embrace is nicer than he thinks it would be.

Al makes a mental note to hug more often now that he has a body.

“ _You_ could have called, too,” Ed says. “To make sure we were here before showing up like this.”

“I _did_ call. But I didn’t know central command was completely destroyed.”

Oh, right. Reduced to a pile of rubble. That would make things a little difficult.

Winry stops hugging Al, but her hand remains on his arm. “I got a call from Colonel Mustang. He said you were both in the hospital and he was _kind_ enough to update me on your condition and told me that Al was returned to his old body.”

Mustang… Edward feels a tidalwave consume him. He wonders if he’d used the stone already to restore his eyesight.

“Didn’t you learn from Kimblee not to jump on the nearest train when someone tells you to come see us?”

Winry frowns, and she folds her arms loosely over her chest. “Ed…” she says delicately. “Don’t compare the colonel to _Kimblee_.”

“Why not?” he mutters. “They’ve got more in common than you might think.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?"

Al has to sit down, so he moves to the hospital bed, one leg hanging off, but turned enough so he can see Ed, and he pats the space beside himself. “Colonel Mustang is, hm… He and Doctor Marcoh are going to use a philosopher’s stone to restore a few permanent ailments from himself and one of his men. Brother can’t figure out how to convince him not to do it.”

“He likely already has,” Ed adds. “Besides. I don’t have a right to convince him. The mere fact that he’s willing to do it says all I need to know.”

“What kind of ‘ailments’?” Winry asks.

“Alright, Alphonse,” says the nurse as she enters the room, slipping a small notepad into her apron. “I’m just going to take out the tube and bandage you up, and you’re good to go.”

Winry gets up so she’s out of the way and she joins Ed on his bed, looking at him, observing his face. He has his hands between his knees, shoulders hunched a little uncomfortably as he still dwells on the topic of the stone.

“What?” he says quietly, finally flicking his gaze up to her.

“You didn’t mean that.”

He knows what she’s referring to, but opts to pretend otherwise. “Mean what?” he says, stalling, wanting this conversation to end.

“The colonel might be your boss, but he’s also your friend. You wouldn’t be this upset if he wasn’t.”

“Being my friend would imply that we’re equals,” Ed says bitterly. “If he thought of me as such, he’d hear me out. Listen to what I have to say.”

“You told him how you felt, and he didn’t listen to you?”

Ed bounces his knee a little in place, still side-eying her. “How I _feel_ is pretty obvious. But that doesn’t matter to him.”

With a sigh, Winry puts a hand to her face. She closes her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. “This is your problem, Ed. You just assume everyone knows what you’re thinking all the time, and then you blame other people for not knowing your feelings are hurt.”

“All done,” the nurse says. She tosses the waste in a bin, and she smiles first at Al, then the others. Ed thanks her, and when she leaves, Winry continues.

“I think you should talk to him and tell him how this makes you feel.”

“It’s not— Gah! It’s not about how I feel. It’s about common sense, and the fact that he _knows_ he’s exhausting real human souls for personal gain. What’s so hard to understand?”

“I’m just trying to help…” Winry sets her feet back on the floor, putting her hands on either side of her, and looks in the opposite direction, refusing to make eye contact with him.

“Brother… Can I ask you something? I mean, it might just make things worse, but…”

“I really don’t see how this could get worse,” Ed says.

Al tilts his head, looking up and away. “Well…” No, it’s definitely worse. His serious tone is coming into play. “I just have to ask… because I’ve been thinking… But how is what the colonel is doing any different than what Ling is doing, by using a philosopher’s stone to become emperor?”

The color instantly drains from Ed’s face as his lips pull apart, and he looks a bit like a deer in the headlights. After making a small noise, wired and dodgy, he presses his knees hard against his hands, hoping to relieve the pressure in his chest by redirecting it elsewhere.

“I— What? That’s not even— It’s not remotely the same thing.”

“Isn’t it?” Al asks. “He’s doing it for personal gain, and even if he thinks the only way to prove himself is with immortality, there are other ways to appeal to the people who are in charge. Ling is headstrong, he’s cunning, and he’s good at figuring out what people want. Don’t you think there’s another way?”

Even though Ed is still gaping, his mouth closes every once in a while, reopening when he wants to interject. Al gets to say his piece only because Edward is still trying to process the shock.

“He wants to change the way things work in his country. He’s going to make an impact and— He’s a good person, Al! It’s not like it’s just because he wants power for power’s sake!”

“And you know just as well as I do, that the colonel intends to do the same thing. So, doesn’t it only make sense to give him the same leverage, and to trust that he has the country’s best intentions at heart?

“We know those people can’t come back from what’s been made of them, and I feel just as terrible about that as you do. But the people of a country put their faith into a leader because of what that leader stands for. I’m sorry— but who are you to say what’s wrong or right about a thing like that?

“Especially when the two of us have committed an act as low as human transmutation.”

That does it. It puts Ed over the edge of the threshold of how much he can feel at any given time. He lets himself fall backwards onto the bed, then raises his arms above his head, dropping them over the other side.

“Al’s right,” Winry says.

Ed’s voice is soft and has no argument left in it. “I know, Winry.”

“Does this mean you’re—”

“Just… just give me a second.”

Al watches him with concern, wondering if he might have pushed too hard. He knows that tough love is sometimes the only way to get through to his brother, but maybe it could’ve been done without mentioning their mother.

Eventually, he climbs off the mattress and slowly grabs his bag, dragging it across the floor when he realizes it’s a bit heavy to carry.

“Do you want me to get that?” Winry asks. She helps him, and she hoists it over her shoulder, then stares at Ed as they linger by the door. “Are you coming, or what?”

“Yeah, I’m coming.”

They close the door behind them, and Ed reaches into his pocket to check the time. His hand scrambles around for a moment before he remembers where his watch is—with Breda, or maybe Mustang—and he draws his hand down over his face, tugging as if fate itself is out to get him.

“You guys go on outside. I’ll catch up with you.”

“Oh… kay,” Winry says, but he’s already half-jogging down the hallway.

Edward doesn’t have time to pace outside the door like he had before, because a nurse exits Mustang’s room, and then he sees Roy and Riza follow after, no longer hooked up to IVs. Roy has his hand on Riza’s lower back, but he puts his hands in his pockets when he sees Ed.

“So, you’re being released too,” Ed says casually, trying to regain his composure.

“They wanted to keep an eye on me for a little longer,” Riza tells him, “But I’m tired of hospital food, and my apartment isn’t far, if I really have to come back.”

“I’m just glad we can all leave this place, now.”

“Yeah,” Riza agrees. “Are you going to walk down with us?”

Ed shifts his gaze from Riza to Roy, and Roy is staring back. His chin is tilted up a little, expression not quite a frown, but hanging on the edge of hardened. Edward can tell he’s not angry. He’s expectant, solemn, and perhaps a little haughty, ready to defend his moral integrity.

It answers Ed’s question though, because the colonel’s eyes have returned to their dark jet hue, and they shift to follow Ed’s gaze, not with confusion, but with a demanding challenge.

“Sure,” Ed tells Riza. He shoves his own hands in his pockets as they begin to walk. “I actually wanted to apologize for what I said before.”

“That’s really not necessary,” Roy says.

Ed scoffs. He hates that finite tone, but it pushes him forward instead of silencing him. “ _Hold on_ a minute. If I want to apologize, that’s my right. Don’t go telling me what is and isn’t necessary.”

Roy kind of frowns at him. “Go on.”

“The thing is,” Ed begins, furrowing his brow, “well… in the end, we were working with all kinds of criminals, people I might’ve considered scum, and defectors. Like, Scar, and a bunch of chimeras that worked for Kimblee, and—hell, even Greed was pretty terrible before he started working alongside us.

“I guess I just figured that after all that, you would have a better moral compass and would know what is and isn’t right to do, especially after seeing how it turned out for everyone else.”

“Fullmetal—”

“ _Give_ me a second.

“I thought it over, and I figured it out. I figured out how to rationalize it, and I think it took me a little too long to piece it all together, but it makes complete sense.

“The law of equivalent exchange.” He gets a little excited, and he puts a finger up from both hands, putting them near each other. “One thing is given, and another is gained. Maybe what happened to you down in the depths was retribution for the terrible things that happened in Ishval and—”

“Edward…” Riza tries this time.

“It’s okay,” Roy says. “Let him finish.”

Ed smiles, proud of himself, and then his expression levels out again. “No one can expect you to lead and to right the wrongs of this country if you aren’t at your best. If you’re going to do everything in your power to help the Ishvalans that are still left, then I think those who were used for the philosopher’s stone would want to help that cause. I can’t speak for them, and I wouldn’t _want_ to, but… I’m not going to pretend like I know any better than you do, colonel. I’m not some all knowing being.

“That sort of thinking is what hurt people to begin with.”

There’s a pause while they walk. They both look at him, one at a time. Ed opens the two-way doors, and then it’s just a short stretch to get outside, the sound of construction still carrying from several blocks away.

“Alright… I’m done,” Ed clarifies.

Al and Winry are sitting outside, but Ed lingers by Roy and Riza.

“I’d say that’s pretty grown up of you, Elric,” Roy tells him. Ed’s not sure why that makes him feel prideful, but it’s a nice feeling, and he smiles again.

“Call me Edward,” he says. He puts a hand out to shake. “We’re friends, right?”

Roy chuckles quietly, glancing down at Ed’s hand. He accepts the handshake firmly. “Does this mean you’re not going to accept my offer to continue to work for me?”

“I’ll get back to you on that. I promise.”

“I’ll count on it.”

With an affirmative nod, Ed waves to the both of them. There’s a car that pulls up to the right, and he watches them get in, Riza first, and then Roy. He offers one more small smile towards Ed before closing the door as Al and Winry get to their feet from where they were sitting together.

“Is everything okay, brother?” Al asks.

He thinks it could be, and while he’s still not entirely sure where the flurry of emotions in his head is taking him, he likes to think the people he’s come to trust weren’t a waste of time, in the end.

“Yeah,” he says, and he means it. And then he remembers something… A vital part of where that conversation was supposed to lead. “Oh, shit!”

Ed tries to run after the car, but it’s already turning the corner out of sight before his legs catch up to his brain, so his hand reaches out and then falls slowly with acceptance.

Al and Winry approach on either side of him, and Al says flatly, “You forgot to ask for your pocketwatch back, didn’t you?”


	8. Chapter 8

“We won’t need to buy train tickets if we can sneak on a train,” Ed says. He has a map unfolded in his lap, trying to pinpoint where they are. “I think the nearest train station is here.” Pointing at a black dot next to the text ‘Luza,’ a large city to the west of Central, he looks up to meet Greed’s eyes. Why does he seem confused? It’s not like Ed’s explaining alchemy.

“Why aren’t they listening?” Greed says, and nods over to the chimeras, who are laughing to themselves like children on a playground. They look up at Greed, stifling their hushed laughter. “Hey! Why don’t the two of _you_ need to know the plan?”

Heinkel rubs his mustache, scratching it, and he stares back before processing the question. “Ed already explained it to us while you were out doing god knows what.”

“Yeah… why aren’t we allowed to go wandering outside, but you can just come and go as you please?”

“Because it’s not—” Greed huffs, exasperated. “Neither of you are immortal. If something happens and I’m not there, it’s going to be hell for the both of you.”

“You let _Ed_ do whatever he wants to do.”

“Do I?” Greed says. He looks at Ed, but Ed’s idly drawing a line on the map with his finger. “No, I don’t. He’s just really sneaky. Like a— Like a— _something_. Besides, he’s really good at what he does.” Greed points at him with his hand near his chest, committing to the afterthought.

“Thank you,” Ed says, not even fully paying attention to the conversation.

“So, you admit it,” Darius says. He crosses his arms. “We’re gonna go out for a walk. They have a pet store in town and I really wanna see the dogs.”

“That sounds like an absolutely _terrible_ idea,” Greed says.

“Yeah,” Ed agrees. “You guys will never come back.”

Heinkel groans. “You’ve really got no faith in us, huh? Give us a time. How ‘bout three o’clock? We’ll be back. And then we can leave and do your semi-train heist.”

“Well, it’s not a heist.”

“I said ‘ _semi_.’” Heinkel puts up a hand in goodbye, and the two of them head for the door, but Greed and Ed don’t add to it, or protest. When the door closes, Ed sets the map up on the table, for easier access.

“Finally, some peace and quiet,” he says.

“Speak for yourself,” Greed mutters, thudding at the back of his head behind his ear with the palm of his hand. “I’ll never get any quiet with this nosey prince yapping my ear off at all hours of the day.”

Edward turns his head and looks up at Greed, and his eyes are absolutely _sparkling_. Greed regrets mentioning it.

‘I haven’t even said anything,’ Ling tells him. ‘Or is this your way of bringing it to my attention that you want me to speak up more?’

“What’s he saying?” Ed asks curiously.

“Nothing useful.”

Greed can see the way Ed sinks back in his chair just the smallest bit, and something rises in his chest with electricity, branching out into all of his limbs like lightning. Greed swallows, rests his arm on the back of the empty chair beside him, and stares over at the door—anywhere but at Ed.

When Ed doesn’t say anything else right away, it feels suffocating. So, when he finally does, Greed perks up, shoulders back and a shallow breath on his lips. “Do me a favor,” Edward says, pulling a pen cap off with his teeth. “Get me my pocket watch.” He points to the counter, and Greed looks over at it, rolling his eyes. His body language screams that he wants to resist, but he doesn’t—he strolls over to the silver timepiece, its chain dumped in a pile beside it in a heap.

Greed dangles it in front of Ed’s face until Ed snatches it from him.

“Anything else I can do for you, while I’m feeling agreeable?” Greed says.

“As a matter of fact…” Ed pops it open, checks the time, then sets it down, and places both his hands on the table, fixing Greed with a unyielding stare that sends a very different, more pleasant kind of electricity up Greed’s spine. “There is.”

“Well, spit it out then.”

He has no idea what to expect, but it feels like the tension in the air is enough to snap him in two. He’s not sure where this stress has come from, or what it is really, but he knows he has a real love-hate relationship with it.

“I want you to let Ling out.”

Greed’s jaw clenches instantly. He crosses his arms, turns part-way from Ed, and tries to decide just how angry he needs to be before he leaves for a good, heavy petting session. With literal dogs, for once. “Not a chance,” he says.

“Why not? You already know you have more power than him. You can take over at any time.”

“I said _no_.”

Ed scoots his chair out a little bit, then pulls his feet up onto it, wrapping his arms around his knees. “Can you at least tell me why?” he says, softer this time. “I just want a reason.”

He doesn’t actually consider lying to the kid, mostly because it’s so against his nature that it would be uncomfortable to do so, but it oddly does cross Greed’s mind.

“Because I don’t want you talking to him,” he admits. “I want you to talk to _me_. More specifically: I want you to _want_ to talk to me.”

“…Oh.”

The anger subsides, and Greed starts to wonder if it was ever anger at all. That’s not something he feels often, and the only example he can think of is when he attacked Bradley after his memories started flooding back.

‘It’s envy,’ Ling supplies, not holding back. ‘You’re jealous of our friendship, and that there’s something you can’t supply him that I can.’

‘And what the hell is that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ling says honestly. ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

Greed scowls and pivots on his heel, then leans over the table with his hands supporting his upper body on the top of it. “What does he have that I don’t?” he asks.

“…What?” Ed is searching his face, trying to understand his angle. He was clearly already processing Greed’s previous comment, and this is taking him off guard a step further.

“What does _Ling_ have that I don’t?” he tries again.

Ed hides part of his face behind his knees. Being able to see through Greed’s eyes, Ling can absorb and assess information just as well as he can, even though he’s not in control, and Ling has this growing desire to _help_ , but he also thinks it best to leave Greed to his own devices.

“Is that what this is about…?” Ed asks. He reaches out for the pen on the table, and twists the cap on the end of it, almost bashful in nature. “This isn’t about which one of you I like more, Greed. I’d like both of you to help me fight this battle, and hopefully, to win it. I want to talk to himstrictly because I want to make sure he’s okay.

“Just because he’s my friend doesn’t inherently mean _you’re_ not. I think I understand where you’re coming from— It’s only natural that a creature born in the desire to want everything would yearn to be wanted in return.”

Ed looks down at his pen, then smiles. It’s cheeky, and it makes Ling smile too. “I didn’t realize you were so fond of me,” he says.

With a scoff, Greed stands up right again. “I thought I made that pretty damn clear when I agreed to your ridiculous proposition and came along with you. But maybe I didn’t make it clear enough.” He points to Ed: “You, Edward Elric,” and then thumbs to himself, “are _mine_.”

Ed laughs, a wide grin on his face, shaking his head at how over the top Greed has to make everything out to be.

“It’s okay, Greed.” Ed gets up out of his chair, still cheeky and filled with wonder in that way he is when he feels like he’s unlocked a new course of information. “You can just say we’re friends.”

He’s about to protest, but Ed grabs him by the sleeve of his jacket and tugs him towards the door. “Maybe what you need is some fun. Let’s go find Mr. Lion and Mr. Gorilla.”

\--

Ling can’t tell if waking up in Lan Fan’s arms was another part of his dream or not. It would certainly be odd, considering these dreams he keeps having are actually memories, and not dreams at all.

Every time he wakes up from them, he feels those memories fade quickly, back into the recesses of his mind, where he can only remember a single scent, or a single line, or the way Ed’s smile made him smile too. Distant, like a memory should be, and not like he’s truly reliving it all over again.

He’s cold, and everything feels… loud.

“My lord?” Lan Fan’s voice says. A car, he finally processes. They’re in a car, and Lan Fan is sitting beside him. He reaches for the seatbelt and holds it like it’s his only anchor to the world.

“Where are we going?” he asks, his voice raspy. He wonders how long he’s been out, but he doesn’t want to show that kind of weakness.

Her voice sounds less concerned, now. She looks away from him and stares straight ahead, just beyond the back of the passenger’s seat and out the front window. “Hangzhou. The capital.”

“Why didn’t you wait to talk to me?”

She’s quiet, and she doesn’t look at him.

“Lan Fan?”

“I just knew we had to leave. I knew we had to go, and I knew that if you just drank from the vial, you’d feel better, and this would stop happening. So, I made a decision.”

It feels so unlike her, and he wonders how scared she must be to act as a free agent.

“Why didn’t you tell me about your hand?” she asks.

“What?”

Ling is dazed by the comment, staring at her with his head leaning on the headrest. Of course the words make him think of Greed first and foremost, but the homunculus has already been on his mind, so he knows logically, it’s coincidental. “What happened to my hand?”

Ling looks over both of them, turning them slowly down where they fall by the seatbelt. They’re shaking, but he has full mobility, and there are no marks or bruises.

Lan Fan watches him with a furrowed brow. She thinks back to the burial grounds—her panic and the tension she felt when Ling wouldn’t wake up. He wasn’t lifeless, but he was unresponsive, and the aura that woman, Naraka, gave off, gave her chills. She made Lan Fan feel a terror she hasn’t felt since encountering Bradley.

There’s a belief in their culture, of something called the Dark Cloud: the concept that anxiety and fear, and other comparable energy, invites in a sinister force that can alter the mind. In some, they may see things—the things they fear the most—like when a garment moves in the dark, and one becomes irrational, seeing a menacing figure instead. In others, they may hear their fears come to life. And in an unfortunate few, they may live through their fears, entirely encapsulated by them.

She wonders if the fading ouroboros tattoo on the back of Ling’s hand was the Dark Cloud manifesting. A product of his dread consuming him wholly, reliving his greatest fears, and her anxiety feeding further into the cycle, giving the Cloud all the vivacity it needs to survive.

Ling’s stomach burbles, and he stops looking at his hands to put pressure on his abdomen, frowning softly. “How much longer?” he asks. “I’d love to get dinner.”

He says that like it’s not one in the morning, but Lan Fan is glad he dropped the topic, because she’s not sure if what she saw was even real.

“I don’t know what will be open this late, but we can try to find somewhere.”

They find a small dive bar about an hour out from Hangzhou. It makes Lan Fan uncomfortable, but Ling insists that everything will be fine.

Ling takes a few steps away from the curb, and then he grabs Lan Fan by the arm, just above the elbow. He watches the car drive away, eyes open in small slits, where she can just barely see his irises.

“I didn’t want to have this discussion with another person present.” His gaze comes back to her, and he lets her go, putting his hands in his pockets. “Where is the philosopher’s stone?”

She swallows hard, but manages to hold his stare. “I have it,” Lan Fan says. “It’s driving you mad.”

“You had no right to remove that from my person.”

“I did what I thought was right, in order to protect you.”

Ling purses his lips. “Even so, I’d like it back now.” His hand extends with a palm faced upwards, and he’s still fixated on her, a wolf that had just removed his sheep’s clothing.

It’s cold outside, but Lan Fan is warm everywhere in her body, and her head feels like it might explode.

“No,” she says firmly.

Ling’s hand retracts into a fist reflexively. “…No?”

“ _No_ ,” she repeats. “You can either drink it now, or I will hold onto it until the ceremony. If you want to keep with your plan, and you need more time… I support you, and you can wait until the last minute, when you are being crowned emperor, to share that moment with your people.

“But I can’t watch your suffering any more.”

“ _Lan Fan_ ,” he presses. An order.

“I’m sorry.”

The way her voice breaks give him pause. Ling lowers his hand, and then his head, and then he sighs to follow it up.

“Alright.” It’s clear how timid arguing with him makes her, but he admires her for her resolve. “We’ll grab a quick bite to eat, and then we’ll continue on to the capital. You keep the stone safe. I’m trusting you.”

He’d always kept her so close because he knew she could be heedless at times, easily fooled, and impulsive. He’d kept her closer than Fu, hoping to keep an eye on her, whereas the old man was much more rational. Ling thinks maybe, this time, he’s the one who’s acting senselessly.

He doesn’t trust his own actions when he has so much on his mind, and if Lan Fan can do it in his stead—if she can take the mantle from him for a little while—he’ll keep her close for that instead.


	9. Chapter 9

There’s something about hotel rooms that makes Ed feel out of place. He’s been in plenty of them since joining the military, but they’ve never been a fixture in his life. They feel in-between, like a liminal space, and a bit like he’s a side character in the bigger story at large.

He feels like that more now than ever now that he’s without his alchemy. He tries to rationalize that it wasn’t ever really _his_ alchemy, and that alchemy itself is inherently a device that belongs to the earth—what Ling and Lan Fan believe of alkahestry.

Rationalization usually helps him feel better, but this isn’t an ache he can soothe.

So he throws himself back into his books.

“Did you know, in ancient Xingese culture, they believed in a concept of hell called Naraka?” Ed glances up at Al once before focusing his attention back on the page. “It says here, this hell realm is embedded in the layers of the earth, and it looks like there’s two versions—eight layers of cold, and eight layers of heat.”

“Uh.” Al side eyes Winry, who has her goggles on, and is tinkering with a piece of automail she has pinned between her feet on the floor. “That’s… cool?” he says, uncertain. “Did you say ‘ _Xingese’_? What happened to reading about Xerxes?”

Ed sighs softly, then leans his elbow on the arm of the lounge chair, propping his head up with his fist. “I kinda found myself at a dead end,” he admits.

“So you decided… to read about Xing?”

“Xing?” Winry repeats, pushing her goggles up into her hairline. “You mean where Ling and May are from?”

“Yeah.” Ed flicks his thumb over the edge of the page, thoughtful. “I’m reading more for leisure than anything. To be honest, I didn’t realize how much I would miss them.”

“I know what you mean,” Al says.

“They seemed nice,” Winry agrees.

Ed snorts. “Nice is… a word for it.”

“Hey—” Al is frowning at him from the bed, and Ed just kind of blinks back. “May is plenty nice.” Oh. “She helped us so many times when she didn’t have to, and she was willing to stick around even after she had Envy’s true form to bring back to Xing. Or do you not remember that?”

“I… do. But I wasn’t talking about May…”

“But you said, ‘them.’”

“Yeah. I was talking about Ling and Greed.” Ed raises a brow when Al clicks his tongue in realization, and then he laughs a little at his younger brother. “But I’ll be sure not to talk badly about your _girlfriend_ while you’re around,” he teases.

Al’s always been a lot more composed about being made fun of, or insulted, but it is nice to see the way his nose scrunches up slightly and he avoids eye contact. It’s nice to be able to see him express himself at all, now that he’s in his human body.

“I just wanted to make sure you didn’t think she was a… brat, or something. You don’t exactly have the best track record with girls.”

Ed’s mouth falls open. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”

Al breaks into a small smile, and he laughs along with Winry. When Ed glares at her, she covers her mouth, but still can’t help it.

“And they say family is supposed to be supportive,” he mutters under his breath, crossing his legs as he looks up and away.

“Sorry…” Al doesn’t sound sorry. He’s still trying not to laugh. He rolls to get off the bed, and he supports himself with one hand on the mattress while he manages his light-headedness. “I’m going to the front desk to ask about room service. I’m getting hungry again.”

“It’s probably the whole ‘not eating for a few years’ thing,” Ed says. “That’ll do it to you.” He looks down at Winry as she finishes tightening a bolt, then says, “Do you want me to go? Or is this you trying to get exercise?”

“I’ll be okay,” Al says. “If I’m gone for more than fifteen minutes, you have permission to worry, but I can do it on my own.”

Edward smiles proudly. “You better be back in fifteen minutes, then.”

Al is out the door without any problems or too much wobbling. He’s holding his middle with one arm, but that’s been normal for him since he returned whole from the Portal of Truth. He told Ed that it makes him feel more centered and that there’s nothing wrong with his intestines as far as he can tell, so it must be for comfort reasons.

“Alright! I’m all done,” Winry says. She pulls the goggles off completely, setting them on the floor beside her. “Can you get on the bed for me? Or come here. Whatever’s easier.”

“I think the floor will be easier for _you_.” Ed places the book upside down and open on the chair and joins Winry on the floor. She breathes hot air onto the metal with her breath, then polishes the heel portion with a small rag.

Ed doesn’t necessarily feel anxious anymore, even if the nerve connexions are unpleasant, but that moment just before attaching a new piece feels just as out of place as this hotel room makes him feel. He’s so naturally curious, but he can never stare directly at his automail when Winry repairs it, because it seems like it should be causing pain. Like open surgery.

“No—Ed, take off your pants.” She waves at him with a boneless hand, and he rolls his eyes at her mannerisms.

“Bossy,” he says, but he grunts and gets back up to do so, tossing them on the bed with his belt.

“Can I ask you something?” Winry says quietly, turning his foot to the side so she can disassemble the heel and back portion of the calf.

“…Oh, no…”

“What?”

“I just don’t like when you use that tone when you have me trapped like this. It’s usually a bad sign.”

“You’re not _trapped_ ,” she retorts quickly. “I’m doing you a favor, you ungrateful little—”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Well, it’s how it _sounded_!” She yanks the back piece off a little rougher than she probably should, and Ed bristles like a cat.

“Hey! God— Just ask your question, why don’t you?”

She frowns until she looks pensive again, and stares down at her work. Ed tries to understand, mentally flipping through all the things he thinks she might ask him, and it’s honestly a welcome distraction from what’s going on with his heel.

“I know you probably don’t know the answer,” Winry says. Ed can tell she’s choosing her words carefully. “But… after the battle in Central, do you happen to know… what happened to Scar? Have you… heard anything from him?”

The question is so far from the realm of what he thought she might say that he stares at her in query, face a blank slate.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she says after a moment, glancing up and away again between her hands pausing their work. “I know what it sounds like, but I don’t wish him any ill will. I just want to know, is all.”

He can’t help but wonder about the truth himself. He doesn’t consider Scar a friend, but he’s certainly an ally—or he was, in some regard. It’s amazing how many of the people that entered Ed’s life completely turned his morality on it’s nose, and it’s hard to know who he really is anymore without those strong ideals in place.

“No.” Ed hangs his head, playing with the hem of his boxers. “I haven’t seen him since… before I was sent underground through the Portal… We were helping the colonel, and then we encountered one of the mad scientists… And then… Well, it’s all a little fuzzy.”

Winry looks up at him. “Your life sounds more like a dream sometimes, instead of something real that happened.”

“Tell me about it… I am sorry, though. That I don’t have an answer.”

“It’s alright. I just wanted to thank him.”

“Thank him?”

The last piece clicks into place, and Winry sets her tools down, sitting back on her hands in a way that says she’s finished.

“For changing. For proving that everyone has a chance, and that even if my parents helped the wrong people at times, that doesn’t mean they were undeserving of that help. My parents left this world before they really got the chance to teach me some of the lessons I think they would’ve wanted to. Scar taught me some of the harder ones.” Her voice goes quieter. “The ones I wasn’t open to learning, but ended up learning anyway.”

For every end there is always a new beginning. Ed spent so many of his years regretting his decisions that he never had the chance to reflect on what _good_ making those choices brought into his life.

The hard choices. The ones he didn’t want to have to make, but he did, and he learned from. Hard lessons.

Some people would tell him it was sad that he never had a ‘real childhood.’ He’s not really sure what that meant. He knows he was forced to see things a child should never have seen. He knows that Winry can be naïve, and that she doesn’t understand his trauma, but he also knows how often he underestimates her.

“I think I know how you feel,” Ed says.

“About which part?”

“All of it. But mostly about not being open to learning hard lessons.”

She nods, and they sit quietly for a moment. He wonders if Al is on the way back, or if he got caught up talking to the bellman. Winry laughs to herself under her breath, and Edward’s gaze shifts from the door back to her.

“What?” he asks.

Winry’s hair falls over her shoulder as she regards him. “Just… ‘speaking of hard lessons’… I think I figured out why you miss Ling so much. Y’know, he’s really the only friend your own age you’ve ever made.”

Ed sours. Why do the two of them insist on pointing these things out?

“You’re my friend,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“That doesn’t count and you know it.”

She picks up her wrench, screwdriver, and bag of miscellaneous bolts, then gets to her feet.

Ed pulls one leg in closer, resting his elbow on it. “People our age act like children. They don’t know what the world is really like. But…” She sits on the edge of the bed, looking down at him, and he feels scrutinized with her up there. He forces himself to push past it. “About that… I… wanted to apologize to _you_.”

The door opens, and Al has a bucket of ice in his hands. He closes the door behind him, and the hair on Ed’s arms raises, his mouth shutting firmly.

“To me?” she asks, still focused on Edward.

It’s not Alphonse that makes him uncomfortable—it’s never Al—but this entire conversation felt so intimate. He never realized that the majority of his conversations with Winry had happened when Al was around, and now that attention has been drawn to it, he has guilt, and frustration, and it’s almost like his apology won’t mean anything.

He’s always thought of her as his best friend. He wonders if she knows that. Because he certainly hasn’t treated her like it.

“You mean a lot to me,” he says. “You know that?”

“Ed…”

Al sets the ice down on the table, and he lingers by it as they talk, leaning part of his weight on it with his right hand.

“I mean it. I know that I’m not great at… showing when I care. I don’t like dealing with the past, or dealing with how I feel about the past, because I guess… the only thing that kept me going most of the time is focusing on what’s next. There’s no time for looking back.

“But, now there is. And I wanted to apologize. For underestimating you. For treating you like a child.

“You really proved me wrong. Especially after Scar.”

Ed makes eye contact with Alphonse, and then nods to the other bed. “You can take a seat, Al. You’re not interrupting anything.”

He’s only a deer in the headlights for a beat before he pours himself a glass of water and adds the ice from the pitcher. He chuckles. “What happened in the five minutes I was gone?” he asks, then heads over to where he was directed, taking small sips.

“Something that should have happened a long time ago, if I’m honest.”

Even though she wants to smile, or to show that she’s grateful at all that Edward is addressing this, Winry stares down at her lap instead.

“Of course I forgive you,” she says. “If that’s what you’re looking for. But it’s not the apology that matters to me. I… appreciate it—of course I do—but your actions are what really say that you’re sorry.” She looks up at him. “If you’re sorry, you won’t do it again in the future. You need to tell me things. I want you to be honest with me, even when you think it’d be better not to.”

Edward can see Al out of the corner of his eye, even as he studies Winry’s steadfast expression, and it pushes him to nod once, firmly.

“I mean it, Ed,” Winry says. “If you say you care about someone, the best thing you can do for them is to be open with them. Even when it’s scary. Even when you think they can’t handle it.”

“Okay, I get it—” Ed extends his arm out and smiles softly up at her. “Help me up?”

She uncrosses her ankles, and takes a step towards him, lugging him up to his feet. “How’s the leg—”

But Ed uses her momentum to wrap her in a hug, and she stiffens at first, taken aback. Then she laughs, suddenly emotional, and returns the embrace fully, resting her chin on his shoulder.

“You’re an idiot,” she says. “But you’re my idiot.”

Ed closes his eyes, a closed-mouth smile tugging at him as well. “Thanks, Winry. I’ll gladly be your idiot if it means I get to be your best friend.”

“Ed?”

“Yeah?”

“You can put your pants back on now.”


	10. Chapter 10

Ling hasn’t been to the royal palace since he was a child. He was always told by his mother that the palace was his birthright, and he believed that sentiment with every ounce of his being.

He believed that until he visited for the first time. His father treated him like just another pawn in his game, and even though Ling didn’t have the full scope of what that meant at the time, he knew it wasn’t everything he dreamed.

And just like every power-crazed tyrant with children, the emperor had a favorite. Guowei. His eighth child, and his first born son. A lucky man, with lucky numbers—the kind that stacked against Ling. In their language, the number eight sounds similar to the word for ‘wealth’ or ‘prosperity,’ and being the emperor’s first born son gave him privileges beyond the other clans.

Guowei spent most of his life growing up in the palace, while Shih Huangdi’s other children, like Ling and May, lived in near poverty, or worse.

The only possible thing that could put Ling ahead of the others, and to allow him to claim his place as emperor, was a physical advantage.

He has no plans to fight his brother to the death, but he knows very well, it may come to that.

His first night sleeping within the palace walls, his body sleeps like a rock, and his mind sleeps like a hurricane. He dreams in memories.

\--

“Hurry up, you slowpokes!” Ed says, gripping onto the back of the last train car. It’s begun to take off from it’s station, so the smokestacks above them have just begun to rise.

“This wasn’t fair—” Darius huffs. “And you know it!”

Ed had a tactical advantage over all of them, having used alchemy to propel himself forward and up, altering the ground to his will. Greed eventually lunges himself onto the metal slate on the back end of the train with help from Ed’s extended metal arm to give him the extra momentum.

Greed breaks into a grin as he hangs off beside Edward, watching the chimeras. The train picks up more speed.

“You’re a couple of old ladies!” Greed taunts.

Heinkel and Darius turn to look at each other, nod firmly, and then break out their chimera forms in the most dramatic dynamic duo way possible. With a click of his tongue, Greed adds, “That’s the spirit, boys!”

“Can you get the door?” Ed asks. “I need both hands to transmute it.”

“Sure thing.”

Greed’s hand becomes a sleek black claw and he uses his arm to pull open the back door. It makes an awful squealing noise, so Ed presses one of his ears against his own shoulder as his free hand claps over the other. Sparks fly a little too close to his face for comfort, and he leans back, and then Greed tosses the door. It bounds off the tracks and on the opposite side of Darius and Heinkel.

Once Greed and Edward make it inside, the weight of the train car shifts as the others clammer on and Ed’s eyes go wide as he reaches out for a box to steady himself. Greed grabs him by the waist instinctually, pressing his other hand against the train wall, stance wide to make sure they don’t fall on their asses. The main fear is that someone might get knocked out the back where they entered.

“Sorry,” Darius says, eying the two of them, especially noting the startled look on Greed’s face.

“Thanks,” Ed says to Greed, for contrast.

The train makes a turn, and Darius loses his footing, slamming into the wall about two feet from them, starting the process all over again. Greed braces himself, and Ed basically face-plants into his chest, hand gripping his shirt.

“Sorry!” Darius says again.

Ed pulls back, looks up at Greed fleetingly, then fixes his shirt for him. They both laugh.

“That was one hell of an escape,” Greed finally says as Ed stands up straight and moves closer to the other car’s door, just in case there’s another unplanned jostling session.

Heinkel leans his back right beside the gaping cavity in the car. “I don’t really wanna point fingers, but—”

“Then don’t,” Greed says plainly.

Ed puts his hands together, then touches the door with his palms, full of intent. A hole about the size of a plate appears with electricity-like energy, and he reaches through it to tug at the handle, pulling it open. “Come on.”

On the other side, in the second train car, Ed sits down cross-legged, leaning forward onto his hands. That moment after the peak adrenaline has drained and the body tries to act like a normal human being again isn’t something a person could ever get accustomed to.

“You alright?” Greed asks.

Darius closes the door and the two chimeras wander the carriage, looking over the luggage and boxed up goods to see if they can find anything useful.

Squatting down beside Ed, Greed furrows his brow. “Hey.” He snaps his fingers in front of Ed’s face and Edward’s eyes open with attentiveness.

“Yeah, fine.” Ed shakes his head, trying to wake himself up after the big drop-off. “I guess I’m anxious, is all. The Promised Day is in just over two months, and… we don’t have a plan.”

“You’ll think of one,” Greed says.

“Sure, but… What if we don’t? And what about Al? I mean—that man who ratted us out in town obviously knew who I was—that might get back to the military. That completely ruins the element of surprise for us.”

“You’re over thinking this.” Greed puts a finger to Ed’s temple, poking him lightly. “I don’t side with the losers. That’s that.”

Edward swats at his hand without any real enthusiasm, frowning. “Confidence alone doesn’t win wars, y’know. Historically: sometimes, it loses them.”

“I never liked history much.”

Ed scoffs and runs a hand through his bangs. He knows there’s no getting through to Greed unless he, himself, is confident, but he’s not, and he’s not going to pretend to be. They might all die.

“Hey,” Greed says again. “Let me let you in on something. A little secret, if you will.” Ed furrows his brow, but he’s listening. “After all this, it’s not gonna be my pops who’s ruler of the world. It’s going to be yours truly.” He thumbs to himself. “And at the end of the day, you’ll be glad you’re on my side. When I’m ruler of the world, you can be right there with me. What do you say?”

Greed stands up from his squat, and puts a hand out to Ed—an offer. Ed stares at it first, then up at Greed’s face—or Ling’s face, rather—but when he takes Greed’s hand, he doesn’t use it to pull himself up. He just tugs, trying to get Greed to sit back down.

“I say you’re crazy.”

He can see the shift in Greed’s expression: how it fades from a smug and self-assured smirk to something akin to concern. He listens though. He does as instructed, and he even goes a step further, mimicking Ed’s posture, crossing his legs under him with his elbows on his knees.

“I know this is your way of trying to make me feel better, but I don’t think there’s anything that can,” Ed tells him. He glances over at Heinkel as the blond tosses something out of a suitcase, but his attention ultimately circles back to Greed. “My family is out there. So are a lot of innocent people. And I know you don’t care about them, but… You should. I could give you some bullshit speech about how you should relate to them, and turn it around to make it about you, and what _you_ have to gain, but the thing is… You should just care, because you’re a good person. Not because it’s about you.”

Greed blinks. “I do care,” he says.

Ed isn’t so sure why he’s surprised by that, but he holds Greed’s gaze for a long time, only looking away when he hears the chimeras talking amongst themselves.

“And you’re wrong,” Greed adds. “There is something I can do to make you feel better.”

“You think so?” Ed gives a soft laugh, skeptical. “And what’s that?”

“You’ve got five minutes. Maybe— Maybe _ten_ , tops.”

“Wha— Are you serious?”

But Greed doesn’t answer. And Ling returns to the forefront of his consciousness.

\--

Lan Fan feels much more comfortable sleeping in a decent proximity to Ling, but she knows the reason he asked her to sleep on his sofa is because she has the stone. When he starts speaking in his sleep, she opens her eyes part way and stares at him.

His face has a single line of moonlight stretched across it from where it hits the window and reflects across the comforter. It sounds like he’s talking to someone, but the only things she hears clearly are, “Be careful,” and “Let me talk to him,” and it’s in Amestrian.

He doesn’t sound like he’s in distress, but he doesn’t normally talk in his sleep unless he’s having a nightmare.

She manages the strength to swing her legs over the side of the chaise lounge, hair falling in her face. She tucks some of it behind one ear, then quietly approaches his bed.

“Edward,” he mutters. It’s soft, but clear enough for her to hear. It must be a nightmare after all, given the information she has. She shakes him.

“Nhuh?”

She looks down at him as his eyes focus on her, and she thinks for a moment, they’re wine red. Lan Fan rubs her own eyes, and he reaches a hand out to her, touching her knee.

“You were dreaming,” she explains.

“No, I wasn’t.” He amends himself when she just looks at him with a tired expression, shoulders sinking. “Well… I was, but it wasn’t a dream. It was… a memory.”

“What does that mean?”

Before he can think to answer in his groggy state, the door opens just a crack, tediously and noiselessly swinging enough to eventually let a person inside. Ling and Lan Fan, in tune with the Dragon’s Pulse, sense the intent in the air immediately. Someone is here, and they are not stopping in for pleasantries.

Ling bounds out of the bed, and Lan Fan climbs the bed post, balancing herself atop it. She doesn’t have her knives on her, but she glances down at her bag by the lounge, chewing the side of her cheek.

A looming figure, dark hair pulled up neatly with a hairpin, lurks low as he enters, and his hands rise the moment he realizes he is not the only one alert here.

“Brother,” Ling says.

“Yao Ling.”

Guowei’s movements are unhurried and flowing with energy just the same. He’s five years older than Ling, but there are two of them, and Ling hasn’t been pampered in the palace his entire life.

“Don’t do something you’ll regret,” Ling tells him, managing to make it sound like a threat, but his own hands are up in defensive posturing.

“Hand over what you’ve brought here to win father’s favor, and I will let you go unharmed.”

“That is not an option.”

He can’t see Guowei’s face, but he can sense his chi as it spikes. Ling is ready to taunt him—to ask if it is anger or jealousy he feels—but Guowei stops side stepping, knees bent.

“Then you’ve given me no choice.”

He doesn’t try to sugarcoat it. Guowei bounds directly after Ling, and Lan Fan drops herself from above, aiming for his throat with the side of her hand. He circles out of it with fluid motions of his own arm, and he goes for a quick jab to the junction just under her ribs. She nearly avoids it, but it sends a sharp pain through her torso.

Ling reacts immediately as well, but it is the same hand that hit Lan Fan that comes to deflect his attack.

“Don’t underestimate me,” Ling says, voice a predatory growl. He swipes low, and Lan Fan rolls using her automail arm, trying to get to her bag as quickly as possible. She pulls out her side pouch that sits on her belt, then clips it on as Ling wrangles Guowei into an arm lock.

Ling cries out when Guowei responds by throwing all of his weight onto him, and then he knees Guowei, as hard as he can from that angle, in the side.

Lan Fan tosses one of her daggers, and Guowei throws a hand down to stop it from embedding in his leg. It cuts his hand instead, and he immediately uppercuts Ling in the face, using his own blood in an attempt to blind his younger brother’s sense of sight and smell.

Ling has never needed either of those things to win a fight. He twists his leg around and the elder prince has to grab onto Ling’s leg to stop it from bending his knee in the wrong direction. It’s enough for Lan Fan to grab him by the neck with her automail arm. She lifts him over her head by his throat.

After wiping his face with the back of his hand, Ling stands. He holds his arms as he regards Guowei.

“Do _not_ underestimate me.”

Guowei has both hands gripping the metal of Lan Fan’s, and he croaks out from her grip: “This isn’t _you_ , this is your— vassal. Your underling.” Lan Fan squeezes harder, and Guowei wheezes. He looks to her, hands trembling. “You’ll be outcasted— for this—”

“Not when I’m Emperor,” Ling says. “Let him down.”

Lan Fan whips around to face him. “But, my lord—”

“He knows his place. Don’t you, brother?”

The moment he thuds to the floor, he bends over to press his fist to the hardwood as well, steadying himself as the other hand touches his neck, feeling raw.

But Lan Fan’s knife has not been forgotten as the blade cuts deeper into Guowei’s palm. He staggers to his feet, hiding it with the darkness and the grip of his fist.

“I do,” he says, voice hoarse. He spits at Lan Fan’s feet.

They both glance down at it, and this singular diversion is enough to offer him a window of opportunity. Guowei lunges towards Ling again, attempting to embed the knife into his ribcage, but Ling’s arm defends in time, and it sinks into the tendon just above his elbow.

Lan Fan hits him in the side of the head hard enough to knock him unconscious.

Ling pulls the knife out with only so much of a drawn breath through his teeth in pain, then drops it to the ground, where it clatters and leaves both of their blood.

“What should we do with him?” Lan Fan asks.

“Take him out to the balcony. He can sleep in the cold.”

She lugs his hefty body up over her shoulders. “Yes, my lord.”

After his brother is deposited just on the other side of the glass, Ling moves over to the sofa, falling back on it and holding pressure on his wound. His face feels numb from the blow, but it’s throbbing at the same time. It’s no where near the worst he’s ever had. Guowei is child’s play compared to the monsters on Ling’s list.

Lan Fan wipes her hands on her pants, then returns her pouch to her bag.

“You were right,” Ling says, in only a soft whisper. “I can’t let another person get their hands on the philosopher’s stone. And if I continue to keep myself weakened this way, I’ll only be an easier target.”

She observes him as he comes to this realization, but she says nothing.

“Greed wouldn’t want me to waste the resources I have right in front of me.”

His gaze on hers is steady. She can see just in the moonlight where blood is beginning to trickle over his hand from the wound on his arm, and she puts her hand in her pocket uncertainly, retrieving the vial with the stone.

Once she hands it over, he lets it sit in the palm of his injured hand. They both stare at it.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“No.”

Lan Fan looks through the glass out at Guowei, and then her eyes are shining with anticipation. “You should do it before he wakes up.”

She wasn’t there the first time he allowed a philosopher’s stone into his body. The moment he drops the liquid into the wound above his elbow, he remembers this detail, but it’s too late to warn her. Lan Fan can only watch in horror as he falls to the floor from his place on the chaise, collapsing onto his hands and knees. The vial rolls onto the hardwood beside him and he grips his hair just before his leg spasms and knocks the vial across the room. It dings against the glass door.

Ling screams out, the stone coursing through his veins, rewriting his own genetic code and putting him back together, again and again, in a flurry of pain that overrides his senses until all he can feel is the color red, and all he can taste is hot iron.

Lan Fan can hear the cracking sound of bones—she reaches out at first, but then retracts, both hands covering her mouth as tears well up in her eyes at the sound of his pain.

It doesn’t last forever.

Eventually, it resides, and the horrible sounds cease, and Ling slumps forward onto his face, and then again, on his side. He’s curled up there on the ground, and she’s too afraid to say his name, so she just stares, wide-eyed, trembling.

His hand restricts slowly. He groans, and then he lifts his head just enough, puts one hand on the ground, his elbow completely healed, and he gets to his knees.

She watches him stare at the palms of his hands, looking at himself a little like an alien in his own body, lost and blinded. And then he turns his hands over, and she can see it clearer than ever before: the ouroboros tattoo.

“Master… Ling…?”

Greed chuckles under his breath, and then he rocks up onto his feet, and smiles a sharky-smile just for Lan Fan.

“I’m _back_ , baby.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so extremely hard to write, that's part of the reason it took so long. But I'm just going to post it and stop trying to fix everything. I hope you enjoy nonetheless!

The last thing that Ling remembers is pain. His mind flooding with the sensation of every pain receptor in his body blaring—screaming—constricting—telling him that something is very, very wrong.

He knows.

He hadn’t forgotten that day deep beneath Central, surrounded by pipes and creatures that were _wrong_ , emulating the types of things one would imagine God himself would reject and spit out. Ling hadn’t forgotten that it was terrible, and unlike anything he could imagine. But he had forgotten what it felt like. The mind can never truly remember what pain feels like, only the _fear_ that pain can evoke. And he was not fearful, accepting Greed into his soul.

He can’t see anything, but he knows he’s conscious. It’s this distant awareness of a lack of bodily autonomy, like his vessel is moving on its own and he has no control. He can feel the cold hardwood floor on his feet, feel the way his hair lightly tickles his neck, smell the odor of fresh blood. These things are all encompassing, so much so that he doesn’t hear all the voices around him until those other senses fade, and he’s just floating in a void with no other option but to listen.

Most of them speak that language he couldn’t understand before. He can hear it clearly now, but there are so many voices that it’s absolute nonsense. Some of them try to do him a favor—they speak in Xingese, or Amestrian—but still, he cannot understand what they say, only that it’s different.

‘Hello?’ he asks. There isn’t a reply, so he tries again in Amestrian.

\--

“You… You died. I saw it,” Lan Fan says to Greed, taking a step back.

“Huh?” His big grin fades slowly, and she furrows her brow until she pieces together his confusion.

She takes another step back, and this time, in Amestrian, she says: “I saw you die on the Promised Day. You were ripped out of that monster, and faded away into nothing.”

“Yeah…” He digs his pinky in his ear, scratching as he thinks. “It was kind of unclear. To be honest, I thought I died, too. But then I remember feeling like I was in a lot of places at once, and— Oh, _right_ — Ed said my name… Was it like—?” He flicks his finger, looking up and away. “Something… Hmm…”

“Something…?”

He looks back at her. “Yeah. Ling. He was yanking on me with all he had before I got pulled out and eaten by my rotten, good-for-nothing father. He must have retained a small portion of me within him. A part of me that didn’t even know I was there…

“And then, Ed…”

Greed looks around, and it seems like this is his first time observing his surroundings. “Where is he, anyway? What is this place?”

“Where… is… Edward?” Lan Fan asks, wanting to clarify. She squints, not really understanding the connexion, or any of it really.

“Yeah. Ed. Edward Elric? You know. Kinda short. Mad about being short. Golden hair, and eyes to match. Moral compass of a saint.”

She glares daggers at him for the condescension, then takes two more steps back, close to the bed. Her hand rests on the bedpost for support. “He’s not here. We’ve returned to Xing.” She brings her palm over her face, covering it part way as everything fully clicks into place and dread takes her over. She mutters to herself. “This is all my fault… I convinced him to consume the stone… I— I thought it would make him better—”

“I really don’t know Xingese. Sorry. I could probably pick it up, though, if we’re in Xing. I _am_ pretty good with my mouth.” He winks at her, but she’s not paying him any mind.

“I’ve failed him. Again.”

Greed glances off to the side, getting a little fed up that she’s going out of her way to speak in a way he can’t understand. Languages come so second nature to him, so he’s already picked up the word for ‘I’, and can tell she’s talking to herself, but it’s otherwise unhelpful.

There’s a sound at the balcony, and he looks up as someone on the ground outside puts their hand on the glass with a thud.

“Who the hell is that?”

Lan Fan pushes away from the bedpost.

“Use your shield,” she orders him.

Greed scoffs. “Whoa-ho. Take me on a date, first.”

“I don’t have time for this. We are not equals, and I will not act like I owe you anything. But you need to protect the body of Master Ling.” Guowei uses the door to get to his feet. “We’ll figure this out later. For now, use your shield.”

Greed clicks his tongue. He looks between her and the strange man in the doorway, and then he meets the man’s eyes, and he can see blind animosity in them. “Yes, ma’am.”

Carbon encapsulates his bones and muscles, all the way up to his shoulders. He prepares himself as Guowei enters the room again, breathing heavily in clear anger.

“I see you’re back for more,” Lan Fan taunts. Greed can’t help but be impressed by the threat in her voice, and the way she looks like she’s ready to tear him apart, even if he doesn’t know what the fuck she’s saying. If she belongs to Ling, she belongs to him too, right? Because he definitely wants to keep her.

“You mean nothing to me, servant,” the man says coldly. “The Yao family must have no honor at all.”

“This is coming from a man who would attack his own brother in his sleep.”

“Because I did not underestimate him, as he so clearly believed me to do.”

Lan Fan glances at Greed. “Show him all of it.”

He knows she doesn’t like him, but he trusts her judgement just as much as he would Ed or Ling’s. The carbon crawls up his neck like building blocks on command, and his face is slowly obscured by charcoal grey and red lines of power.

Guowei’s posture changes. It’s not quite fear, but there is surprise there, and he stabilizes himself.

“What… are you?”

Lan Fan’s voice is ice as she translates. “He wants to know what you are.”

He can play along just fine, so Greed rolls his shoulders back and grins, his tusks shifting in baleful warning.

“I’m your _worst nightmare_.”

It seems like Guowei genuinely considers this, like a smart man. He puts his hands up in preparation for an attack, but he side steps in the direction of the door, front always facing the two of them. Lan Fan doesn’t move, so Greed follows suit. He tucks his hands under his armpits, watching until Guowei is gone out the door.

“Should we… stop him?” he asks.

“No.” Lan Fan releases a sigh of relief, and she drops to her knees, fully depleted. Greed frowns in concern. “He will report back to someone… the emperor’s court. Maybe the nearest guard, if he’s truly afraid of you. Word will get out what happened. Hopefully, it will be in our favor.”

“And then what? What’s the end goal?”

She looks up at him, and the expression that’s on her face makes him feel small. It’s disappointment, and resentment, and the accumulation of all her stress packed into the furrow of her brow.

“He cared so much for you. He was destroyed when you were gone. And you don’t even know his plans? You don’t know what he’s here to do?”

“Oh— To become Emperor of Xing?”

“I don’t know what he sees in you.”

That _stings_. The shield comes down, receding until Ling’s features return, this time with eyes of vinegar that want whatever they can see. In this moment, his shield is the wall between them, and it comes down just like all his walls before, a testament to his humanity.

He decides this isn’t the hill he wants to die on.

“Look… Where’s Ed? I want to talk to him.”

Lan Fan stands up, but her hair is obscuring her face, and he watches with curiosity as she sluggishly wanders back over to the chaise. “I told you,” she says, tired. “He’s not here. We’ve returned to Xing, and the Elrics are back in Amestris.”

Greed’s arms flail a little at his sides. “ _What?_ ”

“I don’t know why you’re surprised,” Lan Fan says. She puts her hands in her lap and leans back against the cushions. “Please, just get some sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

“No— No, no, no, nono. He’s back in _Amestris?_ Across the desert? _Why?_ ”

“Because he lives there.”

“That hardly matters. When you buy a dress at the store, do you leave it there, or do you take it with you?”

“…What?”

“There’s no point in having possessions if you don’t _have_ them.”

There is nothing Lan Fan wants to do less than continue to generate questions from this creature who’s taken over Ling’s body. She thought it would be different this time… And not knowing if the prince is okay, after seeing him writhing in pain, has taken more of a toll on her than she can handle when she’s this exhausted.

She rolls away from him, facing the inside of the sofa, and Greed grimaces at her, downright insulted. He paces, throwing his hands up behind his head, trying to get his bearings.

‘Ling?’ he asks internally, wanting answers. ‘Why was there some… man threatening you? How—How long has it been since the Promised Day?’

Greed spent so much of his existence trying to turn a blind eye to the vortex of voices inside of him, so now that he tries to listen, the static of thousands of thoughts and disembodied voices sends a chill up his spine. Even with this many people inside of him, he feels so alone without the one that matters most.

‘Ling… hey. I know you’re in there _somewhere_.’

He approaches the bed—Ling’s bed—and he’s suddenly very aware that he’s stepped into Ling’s life. This is _his_ story, not Greed’s.

Greed stops. His hands come back down. He sees the way the sheets are scrambled, a clear sign that they’ve been slept in.

‘I’ve been trying to send you a message. I’ve been trying to let you know I’m still here. Did you know?’

There’s nothing, and he feels angry.

\--

“I told you, Edward! I wanted this! I meant that, when I said it!”

Ed sits on the edge of a smile, not really sure how he feels about that, even though Ling’s enthusiasm is contagious. “I believed you then, but I guess I just wanted to make sure nothing changed. You really had me worried.”

“I’ve been here the whole time, silly. Watching your _every_ move.”

With a laugh, Ed looks over to the chimeras in the train car, then back to Ling. He searches his face, his expression, and his posturing, noting all the subtle ways they differ from Greed’s.

“That’s not creepy at all…”

“Oh, well it was intended to be!”

That gets a real smile out of him. “Shut up!” Ed says playfully. “You’re just the same as ever. You’d think after being possessed by a homunculus, you’d be a little less cheery.”

“I got everything I wanted,” Ling says. His voice rings with pride. “And now that homunculus is helping you stop the end of the world. I’d say this makes us even. What’s not to be happy about?”

“Even…?”

“You think I don’t know that I’d be a goner if it weren’t for you?” Ling reaches into Ed’s lap to take his human hand, giving it a squeeze. “If you hadn’t jumped in front of me when Gluttony attacked me… none of this would’ve happened. I’d be dead.”

Ed looks down at their interlaced hands, then slowly up to Ling, his mouth forming a small ‘o’ in wonder, like he hadn’t even thought about that.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Ed says softly.

“Oh, but it is. Without your knowledge of alchemy to get us out, Envy and I would’ve been trapped. But even he wouldn’t have been in there with me if you hadn’t come to my rescue to begin with. This has replayed in my mind time and time again. I’ve had many hours to reflect on the series of events that brought me to where I am now.”

“I don’t even know how you remember that so well,” Ed says honestly. “It feels like it was ages ago to me. So much has _happened_.”

“That’s probably a testament to the fact that I was trapped in my own mind for… at _least_ several weeks. You get acquainted with yourself. You know. Find yourself. Soul search. All that.”

“What did you find?”

Ling chuckles, squeezing Ed’s hand. “For one, I decided that I don’t like fried sausage.”

“Bratwurst?”

“Yeah, _that’s_ what it’s called! It’s so… oily. I don’t know. Something about it tastes really fake.”

“You did soul searching and it was about… food. Of course it was.”

The way Ed shakes his head at Ling is so fond that it keeps the smile on Ling’s face. “I don’t know what you were expecting! I already told you how I feel like I owe you my life and that I want to help you save your country. We can’t get any deeper than that, really.”

“But… you’re happy.”

‘Let’s get this show on the road,’ Greed echoes in the back of his mind, and Ling looks at Edward seriously, holding his gaze with the kind of intent that could turn a stomach.

“This isn’t the end, you know,” Ling says. “I will never give up. And I know beyond the shadow of a doubt, that you won’t either. We’ll see each other again. I promise.”

“Ling—”

Ling gives control back to Greed before he can take it for himself.

Greed’s hand in Ed’s feels warm, like daylight on bare skin, and his fingers curl unexpectedly, wanting to keep it there. Ed’s studying again—learning—piecing together what those differences between them are. And he pulls his hand back, placing it on his own knee, looking away before he finally stands.

“We better find the others before they get themselves in trouble,” Ed says.

Greed sits in silence as he watches Ed disappear behind crates and luggage. His hand is still face up where Ed’s retracted from him, and he eventually stares down at it, chest tight.

‘Don’t say _any_ thing,’ Greed says.

Ling is smug. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

\--

Greed wakes up to the harmony and chirping of several birds. They sound closer than they should be, given that he’s inside. He’d slept facing the opposite direction than Ling did, mostly to keep his back to Lan Fan in some unspoken war of attrition, and he shivers under his blankets, feeling a breeze.

He doesn’t jump when he opens his eyes, but he certainly opens them wider, startled just enough by the sight in front of him: There’s a cat only a foot from his face, curled up on the one pillow he’s not draped over.

It’s a regal looking short-haired cat with fur a ruddy color, a warm deep reddish-brown, and ears that look bigger than it should have for its head size.

He would wonder how it got inside, but he remembers the breeze, and he lifts his head enough to check the balcony door. Sure enough, they hadn’t closed it after that man came inside and ran off.

What an elementary move.

The cat opens his eyes, showing their bright gold color. Naturally, they remind him of Ed, which is comforting in and of itself.

“Hey, there, little guy,” Greed says quietly. He reaches out with the back of his hand so the cat can smell him, and he lets Greed pet him, pushing against Greed’s hand when he gets the right spot under his ear. “Yeah… You really showed up at the right time.”

They stay like that for a few minutes, Greed coming down from the flurry of emotions he doesn’t know how to face, and he can’t help but blame Ling that he even has them at all. He turns over, expecting to see Lan Fan on the lounge, but all that remains is an abandoned blanket and her pillow, the indentation of her head still just barely visible. Not even her bag is there.

The sleek cat bounds across his legs and onto the floor, stretches with a low arch, then looks up at him.

“I… don’t have any food for you, buddy. Sorry.”

He looks curious, and just before Greed is about to say more, the animal trots past the chaise and hops up onto the desk in the room, reaching a paw down to the drawer handle.

Greed sniffs, scratching the hair at the base of his neck, then sits up, shivering. He gets out of bed with one of the sheets over his shoulders like a cape, dragging it along the floor all the way over to the cat’s new perch.

When he pulls open the drawer, there’s a bag of pork jerky inside, and frankly, it looks delicious. He doesn’t even hesitate ripping it open and eating it for breakfast, and of course he pulls apart pieces for his new feline friend, too.

“I like you. I think I should call you something,” Greed says as he sits in the desk chair, bed sheet draped around him. And then he thinks further: “What would _Ling_ call you?”

He thinks about Ling, and Ed, the people who mean the most to him. He thinks about how alone he feels. The cat definitely feels like a symbol for something, like he could sense distress, as animals generally can.

Greed’s not an expert, and he’s never considered himself a cat person, but he appreciates the companionship. As he thinks, the taste of pork reminds him of the pork chow mein and rouladen from Ed’s hotel room, back in Amestris.

He realizes almost immediately that that is _not_ his memory.

It would be jarring, if it wasn’t comforting.

“How about…” Greed breaks off another piece of jerky, holding it out for the regal cat with the too-big ears. “Chow Mein?” He smiles. “Is that too cheesy?”

Chow Mein comes closer, likely to inspect the bag in Greed’s lap, and he knocks a pen off the desk. Greed scoffs a laugh, bending over to pick it up, and twirls the pen between his fingers, playing with it idly. He used to do all kinds of tricks with pens and bottle caps back when he bartended at the Devil’s Nest.

Chow Mein stares at him. He’s not looking at the jerky anymore, but he’s staring directly at Greed, and Greed stops the spinning of the pen between his fingers. The cat’s standing on a stack of blank paper—the nice, thick, stationary kind. The kind one uses to send out formal letters.

He breaks out his shark grin.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did a bit of research and I've estimated 10,000 cenz is approximately $275!

“Are you going to do it, or what?”

Ed stares Winry down when she speaks, hand over the phone like he’s about to pick it up, but he’s hesitant.

“It’s not like it’s a big deal,” she adds. Al is watching with just as much anticipation.

“I can’t be expected to grovel while the two of you are crowding me!” He shoos them with big arcing arm movements, using his body to block the phone out of their view.

“Don’t grovel, then. Just ask politely!”

His face sours and he mimics her with a higher pitched, mumbling tone: “‘Don’ grovel, then. Just ask politely.’”

She shoves him, and he only has the phone handset to stabilize himself, so when he stumbles back, it falls to the ground. Al reaches out to stop it, grabbing the coiling cord, and it bounces once before Ed yells, “What the hell was that for!”

“Stop being an idiot and just call him already!”

“Guys!” Al puts an arm between the two of them. Winry backs down, but she does so by crossing her arms and turning half-way, refusing to look at Ed.

Al sighs. “I shouldn’t have to be the adult around here,” he says. “I’m too tired to deal with the two of you arguing with each other.”

He slams the handset back down.

It immediately rings.

Ed responds with a fight or flight reflex, jumping back a step, a hand shooting out defensively.

“You’re such a baby,” Winry says, and then she picks up the phone, her customer service cadence greeting with, “Hello?” into the receiver. Her hair flies over her shoulder impeccably, as if this whole ordeal was rehearsed.

There’s a beat, and she looks Edward directly in the eyes. “Yes, he’s here,” she says. Her smile is honey.

“Who is it?” Ed whispers.

“Of course. Here he is.”

Winry hands the phone out to him. “It’s Lieutenant Hawkeye.”

Even though the trepidation melts from his raised shoulders, he still watches her skeptically, holding the phone a bit like a dead animal. Edward brings it to his ear and turns away from the two of them, glancing up at the ceiling.

“Yes. Hello. This is Edward Elric, the one and only.”

“Why are you talking like that?” Riza asks.

“Sorry. I’m just… well… I think Colonel Mustang has my pocket watch and I’ve been meaning to call him to ask, but… honestly… it’s embarrassing…”

“Your pocket watch?”

Riza turns the letter in her hand, tapping it on her dining table as she glances at Roy. He raises a brow at her in question, then shakes his head, a firm ‘no.’

“No, I don’t think he has it. I’m sorry.”

“Really?” Ed finally turns to share his surprise, and frustration, with Al and Winry. “Lieutenant Breda must have it, then.”

“Breda?” Riza has an apology in her voice that Ed doesn’t like. “He went back home to visit, Edward. He left two days ago.”

“All the way to East City?”

Al shrugs. “We can visit on the way back home,” he says.

“That’s alright,” Ed tells her. “I’ll give him a call when we buy our train tickets. Thank you.”

“Wait. I called to ask if you could stop by my apartment. I have something— _We_ have something that we want to discuss with you.”

“Oh. I see. What is it?”

“Let’s call it… a prospective job offer. You can bring Al if you’d like.”

She taps the letter again, turns it in her hand, taps it again.

Ed watches Al thoughtfully, but he already knows his answer. “Understood. We’ll be by today.”

\--

By the time they’ve talked things over with Winry, grabbed their things, and made it to Riza’s apartment complex, over an hour has passed. Al is already starting to look worn. Ed knocks and then takes Al by the arm, holding him close to support at least some of his weight.

Riza opens the door, and even though they’ve seen her in her casual attire before, it always feels out of place, so her off-white blouse and burnt orange cardigan makes the whole ordeal feel… undercover.

“Hey, boys. Come on in, and sit down. I’ll get you something to drink.”

Ed gets a better grip on Alphonse so they can walk comfortably. When they make their move to sit on the couch, Riza says, “Come sit at the table,” and so they switch gears, redirected, following orders.

Mustang is at the table. Of course he is. But Ed smiles when he does, a mutual agreement that they’re friends. Equals.

“Hey, Fullmetal.”

Edward guides Al into a chair. “I thought I told you to call me Edward,” he says, and makes sure Al is comfortable before seating himself. He notes the letter in Roy’s hand—its envelope is torn open, and Roy is flicking the ripped part of the paper with his thumb.

“Sorry. _Edward_. That’s going to take some getting used to.”

“It’s alright.” He nods to the envelope, partially out of curiosity, but partially because he knows it’s likely relevant to what they’re about to discuss. “What’s that?”

“Your mail,” Roy says plainly.

Ed is taken aback in the sort of way that makes him speechless. His eyes fall to the paper again, and now that he’s been made aware, he can see his name on the front of the envelope, a recipient’s address underneath.

“What?” Ed says. Because that doesn’t seem like it should add up, and he’s too confused to feel cynical. “Why would you open my mail? And why did it go to _you_?” He turns his head, looking back at Riza as he hears her approaching, holding two mugs. His question is directed at both of them.

He wants to give them the benefit of the doubt, after everything. Al watches his expression, but they both remain calm, interest piqued. Riza joins them, and Ed accepts the mug she hands him without another word.

“It was actually sent to my address,” Roy explains. “I would’ve just brought it to you, but there were some warning signs.”

He finally slides the letter across the table, front side up. In the top left corner, the sender is named, _Emperor Greed._ And where his name is, he realizes now that it says, _My Edward Elric._

Ed feels his face go hot immediately. It’s such a weirdly intimate detail, but if he’d received it under different conditions, he wouldn’t think anything of it. The fact that Colonel Mustang was the one handing it to him (and apparently had read the contents inside before him) is what is the most embarrassing.

And then it fully hits him, his eyes going wide.

“What— Wait, what does this _mean_? Is— Is Greed—? But— He was—”

Roy releases his grip on the envelope, leaving it in front of Edward, and folds his hands on the table in front of his chest. “Read it and decide for yourself. I think you’d know better than any of us.”

“Edward…” Riza says carefully. Ed’s hands are shaking as he picks it up to remove the letter from its sleeve. “I know this might be hard for you, and I don’t want you to take anything at face value, but… We don’t see how this could be anything but exactly what it is. Not enough people had the information necessary to write something like this, and as far as we can tell, it _did_ come from Xing.”

He doesn’t know if he believes it or not until he starts to read.

 

_Ed,_

 

_I haven’t written a letter in over ten years so forgive me if I have absolutely no ettiquite. I’m sure you don’t mind either way. I wanted to start off by saying softly but with a lot of feeling What the fuck?_

_I’m actually not writting this letter because I’m mad at you (which I addmittedly am because you should be here in Xing with us) but because I need your help._

_I have absolutely no fucking idea what to do. Ling drank the liquid stuff (and I have a feeling I should be vague so I am) and I understand that it probably gave whatever shred of me was left the power to reform. I’ve seen my siblings do things like that before but admittedly I’m a little out of the game. I’m a solid 99% sure thats what happened though._

_When I came back, I guess Ling went away. I’ve been trying to contact him but I’m not getting an answer and I’m really fucking worried. I know this letter is going to take a long time to get to you and the only address I know is the one that Mustang guy wrote down back on Ling’s last day there. Which I think I remember because he remembers. Which implies to me that he’s okay._

_I don’t know what the fuck Im writting I just need your help._

 

_I miss you,_

_Greed_

 

“Brother…” Al says. Edward’s eyes scan the letter again and again, skipping over parts as his brain tries to absorb it. _I miss you_ , is the part he gravitates towards the most, and _I’m really fucking worried,_ comes in second.

“Edward?” Riza asks. She sounds concerned, and he can tell why soon after, as a tear hits the bottom corner of the paper and his hand flies up to conceal his face.

Ed’s voice is scratchy. “Give me a moment.”

There’s silence until Ed picks up the mug again. He drinks from it while avoiding eye contact from every shark in the room who wants to take a bite out of him. He can feel Al’s presence burning beside him, and he knows there are hundreds of questions on the tip of his brother’s tongue.

“We’d like your opinion,” Roy says, breaking the tension in the air.

Ed’s response is instantaneous, only needing so much as a trigger: “It’s him.”

They’re right. No one else but Greed could write this. All the way down to the way it’s written, the subtle details that so few people know, the way he speaks about Ling and Roy, the tone and misspellings— But even without those things, what purpose would anyone have to write something like this? It doesn’t make any sense unless it truly is from Greed.

The Greed who he saw fade to nothing before his very eyes. The Greed who’s symbol faded from the back of Ling’s hand to both Ling and Ed’s dismay.

Edward doesn’t look up—he can see the look Roy and Riza give each other out of his peripheral vision, and Al’s hand comes to rest on Ed’s wrist.

“Then I suppose,” Roy starts again, head tilting down in an attempt to make eye contact with Edward, to no avail, “we come to the second part of our meeting here. I imagine Greed’s return would affect Ling Yao’s claim to the throne in a positive way, but if it’s true that something’s wrong with the prince, and the homunculus decides he doesn’t want to play house anymore, we might—”

“No.” Ed looks directly at Roy now, gaze bold and stricken. “His name is Greed, remember? He’s not going to let anything get in between him and the throne. He wrote it on that letter himself: ‘Emperor Greed’. Whether or not it’s literal remains to be seen, but if you’re asking me to investigate personally, I’m in no position to decline.”

“Good. So you’re just as curious as we are.”

“Don’t mistake this for simple curiosity. Greed and Ling are both friends of mine, and I thought one of them was _dead_.” He crosses his arms and slouches further in his chair, and Al frowns as Ed pulls in on himself. “Of course I need to see it for myself. There’s no question.”

"Makes sense to me," Roy agrees. "But you need to get a good scope on the situation if you go out there. Can you report it back to me?"

Edward bores a hole in the letter with his gaze, and his jaw sets, teeth pressed together. His silence is the loudest thing in the room. The letter folds up naturally, the creases in it making it flip inward on its own, and it almost seems like it’s trying to shyly hide from Ed’s unease.

Roy, for contrast, opens his mouth, closes it, and before he decides on his words, Al speaks.

“What kind of… ‘scope’ are we talking about?”

"Anything you can think of,” Roy says quickly. “If they're sharing the throne together. How much the homunculus is controlling behind the scenes, or the forefront, for that matter. Try to stay neutral. See if anything seems off, or if it's mostly benevolent behavior."

Ed grimaces, and he feels all the tension leave his body with the force in his words. "Don't you remember how he sacrificed himself to save Ling, or how he aided in defeating Wrath and…? _Trust me:_ he's proven himself. What I’m more concerned about is Ling’s wellbeing, and what that letter means by Greed ‘can’t contact him’! You should be more worried about Ling than what Greed is doing on the throne!“

Roy levels him with a stare. "I'm not disputing that he's a person, or that he's shown just as much of a capacity to feel as any of us humans. This isn't me challenging his integrity—merely his leadership. We need to err on the side of caution, after the Fuhrer. History cannot repeat itself.

"I'm asking you to be unbiased, Elric. Are you capable of that, or not?"

Ed feels guilty for a lot of things, and that all accumulates in this moment. He forces himself to nod, because Roy isn’t his enemy and he _knows_ that, more now than ever. It feels like, for every stressor that surfaces, Edward has no outlet to express his emotions towards, and the knot in his chest gets tighter.

Has he always been this afraid? This angry?

This useless?

“I— Yeah,” he finally says, defeated. “The points you’ve made are… logical. It sounds like you’ve thought it over.”

“We have,” says Riza. “I have an itemized list of the things we want you to keep an eye out for. I also have some questions I’d like you to ask the homunculus, when you get the chance.”

“His name’s Greed.”

“Right.” Her nod is sympathetic. “I don’t mean to… dehumanize him.”

Ed sighs and sits up to pick up the letter, folding it back to its original state before folding it once more, this time in half, to make it smaller. He places it in his jacket pocket. Roy doesn’t flinch, and it makes Ed suspicious, but he swallows it down, wanting to keep a level head about this.

“If this is a job,” Al asks, pulling the mug he has at his mouth down a few inches, “does that mean we’re getting paid?”

“Of course.” Roy pushes up out of his chair, crosses to his bag on the floor, and returns to set it on the table.

"You boys are more than capable of this, but take care of yourself, alright? Especially with Al’s condition,” Riza says. “Drink enough water, pair it with salt. You know the drill."

Ed is watching as Roy digs through his bag, setting a thick envelope—likely full of money—and another folded piece of paper down beside him.

"We can get you a horse capable of the journey, too,” Roy says. “I’ve already converted ten thousand cenz to Xingese currency. It’s called Kuai.” He pushes the envelope over in fitting business-deal fashion. “You’ll likely need more when you get there, but this should hold you over until then.”

“I’ll find a bank first thing,” Ed agrees.

“Maria Ross informs us that the country was welcoming to her when she was in hiding. They seem to be intrigued by outsiders, though we toyed with the idea of her coming along with you for backup. She said—”

“We don’t need a babysitter.”

“She _said_ ,” Roy tries again, “that she ‘didn’t want to step on any toes.’ Besides. After everything you’ve been through, I trust implicitly that you can handle yourselves.”

Ed and Al share a glance, and they nod at each other, proud to be given this responsibility, even in light of the circumstances.

“Well?” Ed asks. “Is there anything else I should know?”

“Here.” Riza hands out the paper Roy retrieved from his bag. He realizes now that it’s two papers folded over each other. “This is everything.”

“Thank you,” Ed and Al say simultaneously.

There’s not much for goodbyes, the door closing behind them with the certainty of a new mission; but in the hallway, Al tries to be subtle about how he watches the hard expression on Ed’s face fall back into place. His brow is all corners, and his mouth tugs with a small frown as he stares ahead.

“It’s going to be okay,”Al tells him.

How could Ed show so much vulnerability in such a short period of time? The last thing Al needs is to be worrying over Ed _or_ Ling while he’s about to make a journey across the desert.

Ed forces a grin, and his hand goes to Al’s hair, ruffling it up, petting him in a comforting gesture that’s come to be a staple of their entire lives, even when Al was all metal and lacking in hair.

“How much do you wanna bet this is all a big joke, and Greed’s just trying to get me to come for a visit?” Ed asks.

“I don’t know… that’d be a pretty cruel joke.”

“I guess it would. But I wouldn’t blame him. He’s still learning how to be a person.”

Al takes Ed’s arm—it’s the one he’d had returned because of Al’s sacrifice, and it feels like a piece of Al’s soul. He wraps his fingers around Ed’s wrist like a child holding onto their parent. “So are we, if you think about it.”

It takes Ed off guard, but he laughs a little.

“I guess you’re right.” He looks out the window in the hallway before the staircase, and sighs thoughtfully. “To Xing.”

“To Xing,” Al agrees.


	13. Chapter 13

The room is full of thunder.

Lan Fan looks down at the platform from her perch. She can feel the way the room shakes under their feet with applause and the clamor of the performance Greed is putting on—more than just a simple royal fight, and ever filled with bravado.

Even if it’s less classy than Ling might want, it’s still very _him_.

The ceremony to see off Emperor Shih Huangdi was merely days ago, and today, Greed proves himself, proves the full scope of his abilities, and boasts about having the one thing Shih Huangdi wanted beyond anything else: immortality.

She looks away when he knowingly takes a blow all the way through his chest, blood dripping down between the gap in his teeth as the missing incisor fades from where it’s fallen to the floor and rebuilds itself in Greed’s mouth. He smiles, showing his gums, and blood, knowing and wanting and thirsting for more.

But sometimes, it’s more skill than showing off, and her attention is drawn to him entirely. Greed closes his eyes, senses his surroundings, and dodges every attack in quick succession.

She falls for it every single time. She thinks it may be her liege—her friend—her family. And then Greed’s eyes open and he smiles, and he says something like, “Is that all you’ve got, chump?” in Amestrian.

She doesn’t hate him. She has to keep reminding herself of that.

She’s so thankful, because Greed was there to protect Ling when she couldn’t be. He was so many things to Ling that she couldn’t be, and didn’t know how. And she wants to care about this otherworldly being the way Ling would, _because_ Ling would—or did—or does. But instead, she’s angry.

Her anger stems from a hundred emotions. Sadness. Love. Stress. Fear. Confusion. All she can do is feel, and watch, and she knows she’s powerless again.

Until she decides she doesn’t have to be.

Lan Fan approaches him, very closely, after the most stalwart of the advisors ends his conversation with Greed, and the elder returns to the meeting room in invitation. Greed is buttoning up his new, immaculate shirt, replaced after the trials, trimmed in a dark lilac and printed with gold branches all over.

“The day you battled Wrath, when I grabbed your hand and refused to let go, you sounded like you had concern for my wellbeing.”

He looks at her like he has no idea what she’s talking about.

“I don’t remember what you said,” she continues. “But you sounded like you were worried about my arm, and my life. Was that feigned?”

It’s clear to her that he’s surprised she’s even talking to him, but he turns part way and finishes his last button.

“Was it ‘feigned’ that I cared about your wellbeing?” Greed clarifies. She can still see the smallest bit of dried blood at the corner of his mouth. “Why would I fake that?”

“Why fake anything? To get what you want.”

He takes a moment to fully read her demeanor, the crease in her brow, and her hunched shoulders. She hates that she can _feel_ it.

“It benefitted me that you wanted to hoist me back up there,” he says. “I didn’t wanna fall to a watery grave with Wrath. I just didn’t want you to sacrifice anything to do it. I don’t really make habits of being a burden on my possessions.”

“Your—” She scoffs, making a face, and takes a step back. She won’t repeat that word. “Is that what you think?”

“It’s what I know,” he says. “You’re still here, aren’t you?”

“I thought—” Lan Fan’s hands curl into fists. “I thought you were friends. Why are you _doing_ this to him?” The pain in her eyes cannot be hidden under pretense. “Locking him away? And for what? So you can have all the glory to yourself? Just wait until you sit on that throne and have to make hard decisions for other people. You won’t like it so much then.”

Greed is both surprised and aggrieved.

“Locking him away…?” Greed repeats, dumbfounded. “You mean Ling? I’m not locking him _anywhere_. I’d be over the moon if he would talk to me! If I could hear him at all!” It’s the most sentiment she’s seen him show, and she swallows hard.

“This?” He taps the ouroboros tattoo on the back of his hand with one finger, showing it to her. “This is me.” And then he gestures to his entire body. “This— is Ling.”

“What does that _mean?_ ” she asks.

For all the wanting Greed does, he wants nothing more but for the people he likes to like him in return. People have always been crucial parts of his framework in moving forward, and in growth. This wall that they’ve hit, he wants nothing more than to climb over it—

_\--_

_Ed is withdrawn, and pensive, and he’s very much like a painting that moves. Alive. The kind of painting that catches your attention when you first walk into a room, and you never feel like its eyes are following you, but you can’t keep your eyes off of it._

In the dim light of the fire like this, Ed is bronze instead of gold. He’s quiet.

‘He’s acting like this because you let me out,’ Ling says, a sage in the back of his mind. Both the angel and the devil on Greed’s shoulder. ‘He thinks I’m a prisoner here in my own body.’

Ed, Greed, and the chimeras had camped out in the forest to the south of Awrosut, the closest city to East City from the train line from Central. They hopped off the back of the train just as they’d hopped on—out the back car as it was approaching the bright lights and big buildings, using Ed’s alchemy to cushion their fall.

‘I didn’t ask,’ Greed says. ‘But thanks for the update.’

‘I’m just trying to help.’

‘You know, you say that a lot. But for all the trying that you do, you really only make things worse.’

‘Oh yeah? And how’s that?’

Greed can think of a dozen ways, but they mostly involve things he doesn’t want to admit.

“You’re a real smart ass, Ling. I’ll give you that.” He scoffs in laughter.

Greed is still unaccustomed to having another consciousness in his body that has free thought, ambitions, and a silver tongue. He doesn’t realize he’s responded to Ling aloud until Ed’s gaze is on him from across the fire, and Greed’s self-satisfied smirk fades into a surly frown.

“Ling?” Ed asks.

“Nope. Just me.”

Ed looks down again.

It sets a fire to the pit of Greed’s stomach.

“Come on, kid. Don’t look so disappointed.”

Edward has a stick in his hand now, and he’s drawing parts of alchemy circles on the ground. Mostly incomplete ones, or ones that aren’t quite right because the dirt soils them by falling back inbetween the lines, pieces of grass getting in the way.

“It’s not that I’m disappointed.” That contemplative voice is what gets to Greed the most. He always has an ear open to what Ed has to say, but when he sounds like _this_ , it takes it to a whole other level. “It’s that I feel like I’ve failed him. I promised him we’d get out of that place.” The symbols on the ground stop being symbols, and Ed draws figure eights instead. “I made… too many promises. Probably to too many people, really.

“To be honest, I guess I relied on him in a way I didn’t realize. I thought we were getting somewhere. That there was someone I could trust.

“It’s no slight against you… y’know? I just… well…” He tilts his head, resting it on his knee. “Al’s the only person in my life that’s been there for a long time, and he’s shown me time and time again that he has my back, no matter what. There’s something about _time_ —I guess that it fosters life experience—that makes you trust someone above anything else. Nothing can compare.

“And maybe I didn’t know Ling for long, but in every experience we had, he _showed_ me I could trust him. I could turn my back to him, and he’d have it.”

“I… guess what I’m trying to say is, I wish I had more time with him.” Ed steadies his gaze on Greed, and his eyes are shimmering in the firelight as he stills his drawings in the earth. “Does that make sense?”

He’s not Ling. He can’t be Ling and he doesn’t want to be. He’s every desire any person could ever have. If there’s something a person could want, he’s wanted it. If there’s something a person could need, he’s taken it from them, and called it his.

Greed looks down at the back of his hand, and for the first time in his long existence, he knows he’s taken something that _doesn’t_ belong to him.

“Give me three years,” Greed says.

“I’m sorry?” Ed sounds confused, and Greed wishes he didn’t have to explain himself, but he knows he needs to start making strides to prove his worth. He needs to earn this body and everything he’s surrounded himself with.

“Give me three years,” he repeats, gaze flicking back up to meet Ed’s across the dance of the flames. “I’ll have your back. I’ll be the person you can trust, and rely on. As long as I’m by your side, you won’t be forgotten. We can make waves in history, kid.”

Ling has known for a while, what he really means. Ever since that day that Greed’s mind connected Ed and Martel, and Ling could think, _I know_. _I know how you feel_.

\--

“—I’m Greed. I’m an idea. I’m the kind of thing that boils up inside of you and takes over, and for the longest time, I was proud of that.”

Greed moves towards Lan Fan, and for every step he takes, she matches him with a step back. There’s not fear in it, but anticipation, like this will all come to a head and she’ll finally have a _reason_ to hate him.

“All this time, humanity has been looking for perfection. Misguided creatures—those fools back at Central—they were pawns because they wanted immortality.

“An immortal body won’t bring you happiness. An immortal body won’t make you feel like you have everything.”

Lan Fan can sense how close she is to the nearest pillar, and she sidesteps around it, using her hand on it for support. He reaches out and grabs her wrist when she pushes against the column, and panic flashes over her face. She can’t _do_ anything to him in retaliation, and she doesn’t want to, for that matter.

“ _Listen_ to me,” He presses. His pulls her by the wrist, placing her hand against his chest, over his heart. “This heart isn’t my philosopher’s stone, or the stone Ling consumed to bring me back. It’s a real, beating, human heart. Better than any stone, or power source, and it’s _his_. And I’d _just_ decided that I wanted to share it.

“I had _just_ decided that there’s nothing in this world that’s more powerful than the way you feel when you’re with other people. When you’re trusted, and you can trust them back.”

She brings her other hand up to her mouth, her fingers curling as she pulls her scarf up slightly, covering the lower half of her face. He releases his grip on her, but she doesn’t move.

“Without Ling, I’m no person at all. I’m just a shell. I’m just a stone.

“So to answer your question: No. I don’t want the glory for myself.

“I just want to feel whole again.”

It ends the conversation, because she doesn’t know what he wants her to say. He sighs with chagrin, or maybe dejection, and he looks up to where the advisor had beckoned him for their talks.

Lan Fan can’t follow Greed into the meeting room with the emperor’s advisors. And she’s glad for it, as she watches him disappear inside, wearing the clothes of a true crown prince, because she’s not sure she can handle looking at him any longer while she processes everything he’s told her.

He’s scared, and that’s the last thing she expected. But it’s something they have in common, and she’ll hold onto it if it means she can finally begin to understand.

She stands guard outside the heavy wooden doors, mask up and eyes alert. The palace sentries look at her like she’s out of place, so she keeps her posture strong, even though she thinks that about herself, too. She was bred and drilled for this, and her mission will not end here. Not when they’ve come so far.

Observation has always been her strong suit, so she takes in the faces of the servants, as they don’t have masks covering their appearances, and she tries to read the posturing of the guards. Some are lighter-footed, and others clearly cherish their strength, not quite making their presence loud, but louder than she would ever make herself.

The wooden doors open after two hours have passed, but it’s not Greed who exits. A familiar looking man—the kind of face that she recognizes, but for the life of her, she couldn’t place—puts his hands behind his back and looks just past her, towards the stained glass window. It sends a chill up her spine.

But she recognizes him _here_ , as the man who escorted the strange woman at Ling’s mother’s shrine. Naraka, he called her. That name has the same knowing-but-not-knowing feeling, on the tip of her tongue.

She thinks, now that she can see him in better lighting, that he looks similarly aged to her lord, maybe just on the cusp of eighteen in either direction. She thinks, he’s probably younger than he looks, if that’s the case, but it’s probably ingrained in her from growing up alongside Ling.

Lan Fan puts a hand out to a palace attendant just before they pass by, beckoning them closer.

“Who is that man?” Lan Fan asks, voice as quiet as she can make it while still being heard.

The servant turns, and with barely even a glance, they answer: “That’s the crown prince, Zai Ban Diushi,” they tell her, matter of fact, before returning to their duties.

The Diushi clan…

Their clan is settled in the far northwest of Xing, much further than Lan Fan or Ling had travelled within their own country. It’s the furthest clan from the Yao clan, in terms of geography, and moderately well off.

She doesn’t know exactly where Zai Ban must fall in the line for the throne, but if he’s here, and if he was associated with that woman with the sickly chi, he’s a threat.

\--

It’s nearly dusk by the time Greed is released.

He nods to her. Not that she had any doubt that his abilities would be enough, but she can’t help but wonder how he conducted himself in front of their elders, and how a man who couldn’t even speak Xingese would be allowed to rule over Xing.

Lan Fan remembers distinctly that Zai Ban was not a contender against Greed in the ceremony earlier that day. She decides she’ll hold off on telling him, for now.

There’s a rather fond feeling that eases her stress when she hears Greed’s stomach growl and she follows him to the kitchen.

“Greed,” Lan Fan says softly. “I suppose… it’s a start.”

He looks to her, surprised again. Still surprised that she’d speak to him.

“Huh?”

“You’re honoring his wishes, going through all of this to take the throne. I see that, now.” He smiles, just a little, at her words. “I think we need to set some boundaries, though.”

“Alright? Like… what?”

“Don’t touch me without my permission. I don’t like to be touched.”

She doesn’t look at him when she says it, and then two servants pass them in the hall, clearly enamored and intrigued by Greed. He smiles wider, for them.

She learns another thing: the small ones are born in emotion, and the big ones are forged in desire.

His gaze comes back to her, and the smaller smile returns.

“Understood,” he says. It’s been hours since they had the conversation about Ling and he took her by the wrist, but he seems to know exactly what’s been on her mind. “I’ll ask permission next time.”

She tries to match his smile, making a point of returning his gaze now that he’s agreed to her terms.

“Thank you,” she says.

He thinks it might mean more than she’s letting on.


	14. Chapter 14

“Be careful, okay?” Winry says, pulling the boys into a hug. Ed rolls his eyes, but Al’s arms around the both of them, in addition to Winry’s, makes it hard to get out of the embrace.

“You have the spare parts I packed for you, right?” she asks. Ed nods, and she pulls back enough to look at them. “You remember what to do, right Al?”

“Yep! I think so!”

“You _think_ so, or you _do?_ I don’t really want anyone tinkering with it other than you two. I know Xing isn’t really known for their automail… If Ed does something stupid, it’s pretty much guaranteed that—”

“ _Hey!”_

Winry crosses her arms and they both grimace at each other.

“I’m serious,” she says. “We both know that even if you don’t get into trouble, you’ll overwork yourself, or try to do something to show off, and I’m not going to cry myself to sleep over it.” She points at his foot. “That leg is my baby, and I’d like if for once in your life, you could treat it with respect.”

“It’s weird when you call inanimate objects your ‘baby,’ especially when they’re attached to me,” he mumbles.

There’s a whir of the air as the train pulls into the station, and the bustle of those about to depart begins to surround them.

“Oh, look— Our train is here,” Edward says before she can push the subject further. Her expression is soft as she watches them, clasping her hands in front of her as the breeze blows her hair just over her shoulder.

“Say hi to Ling for me, when you figure out how to wake him up. And Greed, too!”

Al waves with a, “We will!” and Ed waves once the train door is closing.

It’s a four and a half hour train ride from Central to Yous Well. Ed makes sure that Al snacks on some apple slices and Cracker Jacks about an hour in. Getting used to being in a human body again meant that he often times would forget to eat or drink, and the last thing Al’s healing body needed was to be deprived of nutrients, water, or carbs.

It’s not only Ed that’s reading about Xing, now. Al has his own volume about Xingese culture and customs, but his is much more up to date, and not a strange book from the Central command library—which describes both of the books Ed has on his person.

There’s the dark green hardback with Xerxesian writing, which Ed really only carries around at this point because there’s an air of mystery around it. What are Mustang and the other military officials going to do with it, anyway? And there’s the Xingese book on ancient humanities and philosophy, which Al has pointed out on a few occasions, probably won’t come up when they’re in Xing.

Ed crowds next to Al for a while as they try to parse their way through greetings and basic phrases in Xingese. Ed’s not sure he’ll remember most of it, but he can at least _sort of_ say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you.’

He looks forward to Ling making fun of his bad pronunciation. He looks forward to _Ling_.

Ed takes out his letter from his coat pocket when Al decides to take a nap.

_When I came back, I guess Ling went away._

It seems so… unreal. He probably has nothing to worry about. Ling is the strongest person he knows, next to Al. Chances are, they’ll arrive in Xing, and Ling will be there to laugh off Greed’s worries over a nice dinner, and Ed will just be glad to see both of them again.

For some reason, he imagines the dinner with just the two of them—three of them?—and then he thinks, well _no_ , of course _Al_ would be there, and probably Lan Fan, too.

He places the letter in his bag, rather than returning it to his coat. It’s nestled between the green book and the folded papers from Mustang.

One holds their visas, stamped and approved for entry into the country, and the other is to acquire the necessary supplies they’ll be getting from a military warehouse outside of Yous Well. There was also a notecard slipped in-between them, with things to ask Greed about his sovereignty for the colonel, but Ed had thrown that away back at the hotel.

They arrive ten minutes earlier than anticipated to the last station, and it’s a twenty minute drive to the warehouse. Right as Ed is thinking that it’s nice to be ahead of schedule for once, they hit a relatively big pothole and the loud, distinct noise of a popped tire accompanies the car jolting as their driver presses the breaks.

Ed instinctually throws his arm out over Al, his other hand bracing himself on the back of the driver’s seat.

They get out to inspect the damages, and while Ed watches, his hands in his coat pockets, Al puts his hands together and repairs the bent axel and patches the tire.

“The wheel has lost a bit of air, but it should be fine to drive back into town,” Al tells the driver. She gets down on her knees to look under the car, in awe as they’ve seen many times.

“I was told I’d be escorting a state alchemist, but I’ve never actually seen it in action before,” she says, wiping off her pant leg from where she’s still crouched.

Al smiles a tired smile.

“Wait a minute… Blond hair…? Brothers—? Are you the _Elric_ brothers?” And that’s its own brand of awestruck. The kind that used to make Edward swell with pride and feel like he was on the top of the world.

“That’s us,” Al confirms.

“You must be the Fullmetal Alchemist,” she says, nodding as she opens the front door again.

Ed can see the way Al looks to him to respond, but he doesn’t, and he climbs back in the car instead.

“That’s actually my brother,” Al tells her. “But we don’t work for the government anymore. I mean… technically.”

They make small talk the rest of the way to the warehouse, but Ed finds he has nothing to add.

She helps them pack everything, double checks the list from Roy, and when Al asks about the horse, she tells them his name is Ryder. “Ryder with a ‘y’,” she says.

Ryder is a gray Arabian—he looks like the kind of horse that’s depicted in children’s books, with a grey-blonde mane and thin legs. She says they don’t send the black Arabians into the desert during the summer, nor the white ones during the winter, which Edward decides makes sense, in theory.

“Black absorbs heat,” he agrees.

He loves learning little details like that about the world. Even with the most subtle things about how people interact with the things around them, it seems true that there’s always more to learn.

It’s silly, but it raises his spirits.

Turns out Ryder is a pretty grumpy horse.

He refuses food unless it’s late in the evening, so he starts to slow down about midday, and he _always_ looks like he’s pouting. He won’t let Edward ride him, but he allows Alphonse, and that’s good enough for Ed.

“What did _I_ ever do to you?” Ed asks, unable to help himself. He stares Ryder down until the horse huffs and turns his head away, and Al hugs him from where he’s perched on Ryder’s back.

“You two have a lot in common,” Al jokes.

Ed hikes his bag up higher on his shoulders. “You’re trying to bait me, and I’m not biting.”

The first night, Ed has trouble trying to set up their tent, and he realizes the kit is missing some of the essentials.

He sighs and sits with his head hung between his knees for several long minutes. Alphonse places a hand on his shoulder and when Ed looks up, his brother is like an angel, eyes glimmering with knowing sympathy, and mouth upturned in a smile that makes Ed feel at home, even surrounded by a sea of sand.

Al makes them a large shelter, turning the grains of sand into a hard sandstone. The rumbling of the stone meeting itself in the middle doesn’t even spook their grumpy horse.

It’s the longest six days of Ed’s life. He checks their compass every twenty or so minutes, or just when he’s paranoid, but the journey mostly reminds him, time and time again, how useful his alchemy was.

There were minor things he thought to use it for before they’d left for Xing, but spending all their time in a hospital, or in a hotel room, the full weight of it hadn’t consumed him. Now, out in the harshness of the summer desert, he can only think how different his life will be from now on.

And he stares up at Alphonse, alive, and well, and restored, and he knows that _different_ isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

But it isn’t any less difficult.

When they reach the top of a dune and the outline of the first city they’ve seen in days comes into view, they both look at each other, as if to confirm what they’re seeing is real.

Edward beams at Al, and the smile he gets in return is enough to push them to speed up their pursuit.

It’s wonderful to see roads again—buildings, cars, lights, and _people_. Ed wants to collapse just at the sight of them. He takes a deep breath in as they try to find a hotel, and everything smells just like civilization should. It feels like the kind of fresh air that’s really breathable, and for the first time in two months, he feels ferried away by a sense of accomplishment.

There’s this fascinating sandstone mountain to the north of the city, caves and sculptures carved into it, that they can see clearly over the buildings.

“What do you think is over there?” Al asks, but Ed’s wondering that too.

“We should definitely take the scenic route on the way out,” he says.

They get a map from the hotel to get a better understanding of their surroundings. The Xingese characters don’t have Amestrian beneath them, save for a single city who’s letters are in bolded text.

“Hangzhou,” Ed mutters, touching the star that marks the nation’s capital. “We’re nearly there, Al.”

“I bet it’s beautiful.”

“Anything’s better than having sand in my shoes. And my eyes. And my hair.”

Al laughs and touches the star on the map too. “Have you thought about what you’re going to say to them?”

Something tells Edward that no matter how much he plans, or takes into consideration, or daydreams, nothing can prepare him for seeing Ling and Greed again. It’s like an ache he didn’t realize was there, and he curls in on himself slightly at the thought of it.

“You know me,” he says. “I take every moment as they come.”

He wonders if he said the wrong thing, because Al stares at him for a while until he doesn’t anymore. Ed’s dreams consist of his imminent reunion with Ling playing on a loop.

Despite every precaution, Al still ended up with sunburn on the rose of his cheeks, his nose, as well as the top of his head. Ed buys him an umbrella in the morning, and Al covers his face with his sleeve when they’re in the car.

“I want… some ice cream,” Al says.

“Sure. We can find you some.”

It’s less than five minutes before Alphonse adds, “I want iced tea.”

Ed laughs. “I think you just want something cold.”

They have to stop at the very edge of Hangzhou’s city limits because Al can’t wait any longer, despite how much water he’s had that day.

They wander the streets, packed more than Central ever has been, and Al stops short of finding an ice cream place when he sees a display of watermelon and cucumber slices.

“Geez,” Ed says, resting his hand on Al’s forearm. “The sun really took a lot out of you, huh?” He buys two of the fruit and veggie bowls, a little alarmed at how quickly Al consumes them. Ed watches him hold one of the cucumber slices to his forehead. “Better?”

“Yeah.” Al smiles apologetically. “I still want ice cream, though.”

Many of the people they’ve spoken to have at least understood Amestrian, even if they couldn’t speak it well. But when they locate somewhere to give Al his fix, Ed can’t quite understand what the man behind the counter is trying to clarify, and they get his order mixed up. He ends up with some Hangzhou specialty, which looks more like a milkshake than ice cream, but Al promises that it’s not a big deal.

From between the buildings just outside the shop, Ed can see the grand structure he can only assume is the palace, and Edward stares for a long time, anxiety finally setting in.

“Want some?” Al teases, holding the straw up to Ed’s face.

He stares down at the milky color and red substance at the bottom and glowers. That is, without a doubt, the most disgusting drink he’s ever seen. “Eugh, _no_.”

“Just try _one_ sip—”

“Al—!”

Ed can see the shadow of a looming figure from behind them before he can think to react, and both of the brothers freeze, aware of how close—and large—this person is. They turn around slowly, Al clutching his milkshake with both hands, and Ed stares up into the face of a man with dark glasses, a steep-collared jacket, and a dark brown beanie covering the top of his head.

The standstill lasts for longer than it probably should, as everyone processes the other.

“…Scar?” Ed finally says, relaxing despite the confused lilt in his voice.

Scar nods to the alleyway beside the ice cream shop.

Al looks around at their surroundings, but for the most part, no one is paying them any mind. He takes Ed by the arm as they follow, and Scar removes his glasses once they’re out of sight of the street, leaning against the wall.

“What are you doing here?” Ed asks.

“I would like to ask you the same thing,” he says, still alert. They can hear from down the alley where someone is disposing of their trash in a dumpster, and both the brothers look, but Scar’s voice brings them back. “Or do you have a penchant for getting yourselves in trouble?”

“We’re not here for any trouble,” Al says, shaking his hand in a ‘stop’ gesture.

Scar’s gaze drops to his milkshake, then back to Al’s face before looking to Edward.

“You’re… tourists.” He sounds incredulous.

“Yeah? What of it?” Ed says.

“It just seems unlikely that you’d show up here when I did. I’m looking for someone.”

“Well, we don’t want you to drag us into whatever you’re… doing.”

Scar looks to the end of the alleyway, face neutral as ever. It makes Ed crinkle his nose. He thinks of how Winry asked him if he knew what Scar was up to now that everything was over, and it makes him realize that for Scar, nothing is ever really ‘over.’

Scar’s voice is just as neutral as his expression.

“What if I told you the someone I was looking for was trying to find a way to capture the Emperor?”

Ed scoffs in surprise, hands curling into fists.

“What—? What do you _mean??_ ”

When Scar pinches the bridge of his nose, it’s in realization that they really weren’t kidding. “We can’t talk about this here. It’s too public. If you want to know more, meet me in the grotto by Jianxian Bridge outside of the observatory. Midnight.”

“A… grotto?” Ed narrows his eyes. “You mean a cave.”

Scar still sounds exasperated by this whole ordeal, but he looks Ed directly in the eyes. “Yes, a _cave_. It’s a tourist spot during the day. It’s not like it’s some uncharted hideout.”

The sound of Al slurping his milkshake makes Ed look his way, and they share a glance, but ultimately, Scar puts his glasses back on in finality. It’s a sign he’s not sticking around to continue this conversation.

“Alright,” Ed agrees. “Midnight.”

They watch him leave, and Ed leans over to rest his hands on his knees, taking a few slow breaths to recover.

Why is this how his life is?


	15. Chapter 15

“How do I look?” Greed asks Lan Fan, extending his arms. His hair is all pulled back—even his bangs and loose hairs are tucked away in the bun at the top of his head—with a strip of silken white fabric keeping it taut against his scalp. “Don’t lie to me.”

She covers her mouth with the back of her hand and tries not to laugh. Maybe on Ling it would look regal, but with Greed’s proud expression and near-constant smug grin, he looks a bit like a child in a pageant show.

“It’s… You certainly did it right,” she manages to get out.

“It took me six tries,” he admits. “I woke up early for this, and I _really_ wanted to go back to sleep.”

“You have attendants for a reason,” Lan Fan tells him, though she’s still trying to conceal her amusement. “They would have done your hair for you.”

Greed looks at himself in the long mirror he has in his bedroom. This room now—the Emperor’s quarters—it’s much nicer than the room Ling originally had; the room that had Guowei’s blood, along with his own, shed on the floor. The plain oak hardwood from before is swapped for a cherry red with a lustrous finish, ornate alkahestry symbols engraved into the grain in the center of the room.

There’s an authentic brown bear rug at the foot of the bed, which Greed had insisted is _very cool_ , but Lan Fan insists Ling would _hate_ , and the drapes over the balcony doors and the window are a dark wine color: not quite red or purple, but somewhere exactly in between, like the shade of Greed’s eyes. They have tassels, and overhangs at the top, and gold trim at the bottom.

Everything has gold trim.

“Back in my old body, or one-point-oh, if you will, I could _really_ take a hair pulling. This body? Not so much. My skin is so sensitive. Especially my head. And… my mouth? Is that a weird thing to notice?”

Lan Fan makes a face at him, more disturbed by the _way_ he’s giving her these details than by the details themselves.

“Yeah,” he says, “No comment, I’ll take it?”

Chow Mein, the gold-eyed cat with the sleek ruddy fur, shakes his head as he stands up from his spot on Greed’s bed. He has a collar now: a simple black band with a star charm in the middle. It jingles when Chow Mein shakes off.

“Wish daddy good luck today,” he coos from where he watches the feline approach, and he crouches down to scratch under his chin. Chow Mein purrs and closes his eyes, leaning into the touch. “Yeah, tha’s a good boy!”

Lan Fan observes, but she strides over to the door soon after, trying to make a point that he should be heading out. He takes his time, and she hears him mumble something like, “Don’t get too much fur on the robes, okay?”

She smiles and pulls her mask up from around her neck to fasten it.

“Hey, Lan Fan?” Greed asks when they’re heading down the hall, smoothing out the looser parts of his garb from where crouching pulled at them. She only glances at him and he continues. “I want to stop by the market tomorrow. I was wondering if you’d come with me.”

“Of course I will. Why… wouldn’t I?”

“Well, I don’t really mean… as my body guard. I mean as a friend. I need your advice on some things.”

She doesn’t know how to address the ‘friend’ part, but it makes her feel prideful, if unsuited for the position. “What kind of advice?”

“You know… I sent that letter to Ed, and—”

“I really wish you’d let me read that before sending it.”

“You were a little out of commission at the time, to be fair.”

“Continue.”

“But, uh.” Greed scratches his chin with one finger. “When he— _If_ he ever shows up around here, you know, just in case, I want to be prepared. I want to make him feel at home. I could make him uh, a grab bag? I could get him one of those head massagers. Oh! What about a personalized flask? I could put, like, _Fullmetal Alchemist_ on it!”

Lan Fan is glad he can’t see her expression right now, but she looks away anyway. “I… don’t think he’s old enough to drink.”

“That’s okay. I’m old enough for the both of us.”

“That— No…”

It’s hard to toe the line between telling him outright what is and isn’t a good idea, and convincing him that what she thinks best is his _own_ idea.

“Back in Dublith, my bar was a total hot spot. You know why? Because as long as you weren’t looking for trouble, we’d let you in. Old, young; whatever. My man Roa was our bouncer. I could trust his judgement beyond anything else. And he was built sturdy, just like me.

“I mean, most chimeras are. But he was something else.

“You could say he was a… _bull_ of a man.”

She keeps quiet, but she makes eye contact once.

“You know, ‘cause he— Anyway,” he says. “If kids wanted to have a place to go to get away from it all, I didn’t see a problem with that. Dolcetto and… Bido… would always keep an eye on them.” Greed looks wistful for a moment, but he picks back up again. “They could have just enough to wet their whistle, maybe feel like they’re floating in the clouds for a bit. None of that alcohol poisoning shit. I take care of me and mine, and I wasn’t about to have kids puking in my fine, upstanding institution.”

Lan Fan wonders how much Ling knew about Greed’s past. What was so easy for her about being around Ling was that they could enjoy comfortable silence most of the time. Greed seemed like the type of person that wanted to fill the room with words, no matter what they were. The type that liked to hear himself speak, but that he wanted to in exchange for the words of others, and not simply because he wanted to shoot off at the mouth.

She wasn’t the person he should be coming to for that, but she also knows that currently, she’s the only person available.

“I’m… glad you had a good time,” she says, in an effort to try to stray from anything negative about the topic, even though it’s very questionable, and she doesn’t want to support the notion.

The smile on his face at her words looks genuine—a combination of satisfaction and complacency. It’s endearing, but she feels bad that she can’t be what he needs.

\--

She stands guard at his side for several hours in the room of the royal court, impressed by the way he handles the people around him. The idea of him sitting on the throne still feels foreign to her, and a bit like a dream; or maybe it’s a nightmare, since it was always supposed to be her prince who rose to become Emperor.

She appreciates Greed’s efforts, but he is still an outsider in a Xingese body, and a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

It has been three weeks and two days since Ling Yao has been missing within his own consciousness, and Lan Fan tries to catalogue ways that she can reach him beyond the wall of avarice at the forefront of his mind.

When she is low on strength and needs a meal, it’s the palace guards who’ve been stationed here all their lives who tell her to, “Go, eat,” and when Greed says, “It’s alright. You’re probably starving, huh?” she wishes he understood she’d rather he say, ‘I’ll come with you.’

But he doesn’t, because he’s not Ling.

\--

Greed learns more about the state of the country in one day than he learned in all his time sharing a mind with the kid who grew up here.

There’s a toxic water supply in the southwest, at its worst where May Chang’s clan is located. The neighboring clans take advantage of this plight, and prey on the Changs with both violence and excessive theft. In contrast, the east is flooded where the sea meets the land, with hundreds of casualties, and three of the fifty clans have bound together in support of each other.

Riots have taken up in the north, and many of the northern clans have grown restless towards the end of Shih Huangdi’s reign, all but pounding on the doors of the palace to incite change.

Greed is bone tired when he gets back to his room at the day’s end, but he takes a shower and it wakes him up enough to realize he may’ve bitten off more than he can chew.

He’s always been a good leader, but that was when he was over his own dominion. Those who don’t belong, and outcasts, and the people who had no where left to go.

Regular people…?

Not exactly his area.

‘I think I need a drink,’ he says internally, and of course Ling doesn’t answer, but he takes it as all the more reason to do just that.

He is ‘old enough for the both of them,’ after all.

Chow Mein slips under the curtain that sanctions off the bathroom from the bedroom, and he meows softly as Greed turns off the water.

“Heeeyy, buddy,” he says. It’s still funny to him how much he has to twist and squeeze his hair to get all the water out, and it drips for a long while afterwards. He’s fond of it now, even after all the jokes he made to Ling about cutting it all off.

He would never joke about that now, with the overbearing tightness in his core that he’s steering this vessel that doesn’t belong to him, and he feels the need to preserve it in any way he can.

That doesn’t apply to alcohol though.

Greed towels off and looks at himself in the partially fogged-up mirror while Chow Mein rubs against his legs lovingly. He doesn’t realize he’s frowning until the cat’s purrs make him smile.

“We’re going to figure this out,” he says, and he’s not sure if it’s directed at Ling, Chow Mein, or himself.

He has clothes laid out for him on the bed, likely left by the palace attendants, but he puts on something else—a simple shirt and pants that tighten at the calf—and he looks between the door and the window for a moment, debating.

It’d be best to sneak out, huh?

Greed considers the balcony, but honestly, the window calls to him and he’s not sure why. It feels more natural, for some reason. He flips up the latch and tugs open the glass panel, hoisting himself outside.

And he nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees Lan Fan glance over at him from her perch on the balcony railing.

She watches him recover as he scrambles to hold onto the window sill, one leg stretching over to brace on the railing just behind her foot.

“What are you _doing?_ ” he asks her, voice pressed for answers. She remains to stare unimpressed, if a little confused.

“What are _you_ doing?” she replies.

“I asked you _first_.”

He can’t see her face with the mask on, but he imagines she’s frowning at him.

“If you wanted to leave, why can’t you use the door like a normal person?” she asks.

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you.” Greed manages to recover, pulling his leg back so he can squat on the windowsill, hand supporting himself above his head. “What are you doing out here?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“So… you decided to hang out outside my bedroom?”

“I’m guarding you,” she says. She crosses her arms, glances down at the stories below them, then back to Greed. “And now you answer my question.”

Greed sighs. “I’ve been good, alright? I just needed to relax. Clear my head.” The scrutiny is still there, or so he thinks. “Look… I feel a bit like a hostage, here. Cut me some slack. Ling is… sort of my impulse control, so I’m _itching_ to do something.”

“Master Ling has impulse control?” she asks.

Greed blinks. And then he laughs. She laughs, too.

Lan Fan doesn’t spend long thinking it over. She cares about Ling’s wellbeing, and what Greed does with his body, but she tries hard to focus on what her grandfather would do in her shoes, and furthermore, what Ling would want her to do.

Greed will prove her right, or he will prove her wrong—that he can handle this, to take care of himself—and either way, she wins.

“Go,” she says, nodding to the cityscape beneath them, red and white lights speckled across the ground, calling out to him.

She watches as he descends the side of the palace and the sloping eaves of its pagoda. She watches and waits there, and he doesn’t disappoint her. He’s back before sunrise, a little drunk, but he assures her in his uninhibited state:

“See, you can trus’ me. It jus’ takes time. I’ll show you I’ve got your back.”

\--

Greed has two morning meetings: one with the chief of a northern clan, and one with the imperial council. They feel like they stretch on and on until Greed is whirring around in his own mind, so strikingly aware of how loud the souls within his core are. It’s no wonder he can’t hear Ling over them, and he’s amazed he ever could.

He has to track Lan Fan down when he’s finished, and even that takes him longer than he anticipates.

He made it very clear to his advisors ever since he proved both his worth, and the full scope of his abilities, that Lan Fan will not be replaced as his right hand and personal sentinel. However, he can’t stop them from making her train alongside the palace guard.

She’s drenched in sweat, a minor cut visible just above her jawline, when she insists she’s fine with accompanying him to the market. She affixes her mask and walks with him.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna shower first? Maybe take a break?”

“I’m fine; thank you.”

He’s grown accustomed to her sheer force of will, but the concern still lingers. “What about a fruit?”

“Sorry, what?”

“I dunno… Sometimes when I feel tired, or I’ve worked hard, I eat a fruit and I instantly feel ten times better.”

It sounds like he’s trying to sell her a car, and she’s a little too tired to laugh at ‘a fruit,’ but she shakes her head, and eventually he lets it go.

“They want to assign me a secondary,” she tells him. “Someone else to protect you, as if I’m not enough.”

Greed has his head turned, focus shifting from stall to stall as they peruse the street market that’s walking distance from the base of the palace grounds. The awning overhead ranges from light tarps to red orange fabrics with stripes or polka dots, and sitting under each canopy is a new array of wares.

“Is that…” he starts, distracted. And then it fully sets in, his head whipping around to look at her. “Wait, really?”

“I know that they look at me, and they see a child,” Lan Fan says, begrudgingly. “I’m sure they feel similarly about you.”

“Okay… Well, first of all…” Another distraction.

His hand is already reaching for his coin purse before he’s even decided on what to buy. The trade between Greed and the vendor behind the table is brief, and he even manages the exchange in Xingese, to Lan Fan’s surprise. He buys a bottle of cologne and a jade rock with a sun carved into it.

“What were you saying?” he asks her. Lan Fan balks at him, and before she can even press the matter, he’s bounding off again with an, “Oooh,” making his way through the crowd until he’s in front of another stall that he’s grinning over.

She furrows her brow when she watches him purchase a wide-toothed bamboo comb, a reversible hat, a dark grey wallet with a dragon stamped onto the front, a pack of hard candies, and relatively expensive bath salts said to be made from alkahestry.

“Do you think: the rose-lavender, or the ginger-eucalyptus?”

“The first one, I suppose? I… thought you were here to buy something for Edward,” Lan Fan questions, her frustration forgotten in favor of sheer astonishment.

Greed looks at her slowly, brows raised.

“I am,” he says.

He sets both his bags up on the edge of one of the stalls to reorganize everything, digging through to make sure the glass doesn’t break, and the salts are sealed completely.

“You should stop splurging and try to find something for him quickly, then. You shouldn’t step out of the palace for long, especially so soon after you were enthroned.”

He finishes meddling with his purchased goods, and puts both bags in one hand. “I’m not _splurging_. I bought all of this for him.”

Lan Fan lets out a breath, eying the bags. “Oh,” she says. “Don’t you think that will be overwhelming?”

“Naaah. Who doesn’t like getting gifts, right?”

It settles in that he _has_ been asking her for advice on most of the things he’s purchased, and it sheds a different light on the entire situation.

“Do you think he needs a teapot?” Greed asks.

Lan Fan tries her hardest to make herself sound delicate. “Ah… no.”

“They’re very pretty.”

“Yes,” she says. “They are.”

They’ve been gone nearly two hours before Lan Fan has steered him back in the direction of the palace, on a mission to return him before he has so much he needs a car to transport his goods. She’s stuck carrying one of his bags, but she’s managed to get his coin purse from him and tries to get him talking about the secondary position again.

“They’re going to want to move fast, so that everything is in place and the clan chieftains don’t raise their voices against you. Granted, they will do as they please, and if they still consider you a threat, you may have other challengers.”

“Let them come,” he says, beaming. “I love a good challenge.”

“No. No— If someone is challenging you, that means the people aren’t happy with your supremacy. Regardless, my point is, you will need to convince them of my strength and my loyalty.”

“Lan Fan,” Greed says, tilting his head as he looks at her, “You worry too much.” It frustrates her how calm he is about this. “Have some faith.”

She watches him as they walk, safely from behind her mask. She doesn’t know how to make it any clearer how important this is to her. As she mulls it over, she stares down at the ground, and the openness of the expanse before the palace archways gives her the space she needs to focus inward.

She gets distracted enough that she bumps him on the arm when he comes to a sudden standstill, knocking into the bag in his right hand. She mutters an apology, but he doesn’t seem concerned with the array of wares he was so precarious about before.

It takes her a moment to figure out why he’s stopped, but he’s staring straight ahead of her—and then, so clearly, like the sun on the horizon, there are two heads of golden blond hair set atop strikingly Amestrian clothes.

Edward and Alphonse are speaking with one of the palace guards, their backs facing them, and Lan Fan draws herself to Greed’s face once more, surprised by what she sees there.

Anxiety, and trepidation, and yearning.

For the first time, she sees his heart. After all of his convoluted ways of trying to explain to her what he _thinks_ he is—to tell her the true nature of his existence—she can actually _see_ him. Lan Fan places her free hand on his wrist, but even her touch doesn’t drag his gaze away, and she realizes she’s going to have to be his guide.

She inhales slowly through her nostrils and hopes that Ling can forgive her for her disrespect.

And she shoves Greed forward with the palm of her hand, closer to the Elric brothers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I greatly appreciate any feedback I've received on this story. If you're enjoying so far, please leave a kudos, and thank you so much to those keeping up with this!!  
> If you'd like to contact me, my instagram is pulseandhaze and my tumblr is blackspilots, though responses on tumblr may be slow. Thank you!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't figure out anywhere to split this chapter, so it's just... really long. Merry Christmas everyone!

Greed stumbles forward a few feet, and Lan Fan pushes him again.

“Hey—” he complains, and she’s about ready to do it a third time before the guard the Elrics are speaking with gestures towards them, and the boys turn to look. Alphonse offers a smile of recognition, Ed’s eyes widen, like he doesn’t believe what he’s seeing is real, and Greed continues to freeze, even more now than before.

“Ling?” Edward asks, taking a small step in his direction.

Greed scoffs under his breath. “No. Sorry, kid. It’s just—”

“Greed!”

Ed sounds delighted, and relieved, and he hands Al his coat and runs towards Greed without a second thought, arms swiftly hooking under Greed’s to lift him off the ground in a hug that has them both spinning. Lan Fan manages to catch the bag that Greed fumbles in the process, and both boys dissolve into laughter before Ed even sets Greed down again.

Lan Fan can feel their joy radiating off of them in waves, and she understands it better now, as Edward squeezes Greed closely, eyes closed and content.

Through her fear and her mourning, she’d been hesitant to see Greed as more than an extension of Ling, like a power he should have to control.

But now, she thinks of how Greed had called her a friend. How Edward and Alphonse see him as a person just as important to them as Ling himself.

How Ling had mourned Greed’s death just as much as the death of her grandfather.

“We told you,” Al says to the guard, smiling as he watches Ed lean into Greed’s shoulder, then pull back to help him carry his things, “we’re pretty good friends with the emperor.”

Greed tugs against Ed’s grip on his bags. “I’ve got this,” he says.

“Okay…” Edward flashes Lan Fan a smile, hand still resting on Greed’s side, then nods to his own belongings that surround Al. There’s two duffel bags and his backpack, and Al already has his jacket and the umbrella they bought to block the sun. “I guess I have enough to carry in myself. We didn’t know how long we’d be staying, so—”

“Someone will collect all that for you. You can leave it.” Lan Fan nods in finality, but she takes one more of Greed’s bags, which Ed squints at, especially when Greed allows her to without question.

“I guess that’s fine. I just wanna get Al inside so he can rest.”

“ _That’s_ your brother?” Greed says, approaching Al as the others follow beside him.

“No,” Ed jests. “In fact, I’ve never seen this man in my life. Guards, take him away!” He points dramatically through the archway.

Al snorts in laughter, and Greed says, “Haha, very funny.” He nods to Alphonse with a grin. “You look great for being stuck in the Portal of Truth for… who knows how long.”

“Thanks,” Al says. “And you look pretty great for being stuck in the body of a teenager.”

Lan Fan acknowledges the guards at the juncture outside the main steps, and she says, “Speaking of which: I’ve been hoping your knowledge of alchemy could help us with that.”

“If it were that simple, I would’ve had my growth spurt when I was thirteen,” Ed jokes.

“No, I mean—”

“Sorry,” he says. “I know. The letter.” Edward rests his elbow on his hand, and his other hand on his cheek, gears turning in his head. “If Ling isn’t responsive… And it was triggered by Greed’s return… I think there needs to be a counter-trigger to bring him back.”

“Not gonna lie. I don’t like the sound of that,” Greed tells him.

“What kind of counter-trigger?” Lan Fan asks.

“Well… What have you tried?”

They bound up the stairs at the base of the palace, and Ed lingers for a moment to help Alphonse. The front doors open for them by armored sentries in shades of dark grey and lavender, and Ed takes his jacket back to sling over his shoulder.

“I had his favorite meal made,” Lan Fan says. “And Greed and I tried sparring.”

“Those are certainly good ideas, but… That might not be enough.” Ed stops, and he and Al take in the great hall with awe, craning their necks to see everything. “Wow,” he breathes. “It’s…”

“Beautiful,” Al finishes.

Greed places his fists on his hips proudly, looking up at the ornate painted ceiling, golden banners in Xingese writing, and royal red columns. He has a pleased grin on his lips when he focuses on Ed again, his sharky smile zoning in on Ed’s open admiration.

“Yeah? You like it?”

“You’d think a place like this would be trigger enough,” Ed says. “I know for a fact that pampered prince is in there somewhere.” Ed narrows his eyes at Greed in thought, and Greed’s smile is slowly halved as he shifts his gaze between Ed’s eyes, curious and fixated. “I wonder…”

Ed takes two steps closer, and in one swift motion, he thuds Greed on the back of the head with the palm of his hand.

“Edward!” Lan Fan scolds. The room goes quiet as the guards and attendants that can see them watch Edward with the silence of the unknown, unsure what to do or if this conduct is allowed.

Ed simply shrugs with both hands as Greed rubs the back of his head, either with the air of someone who couldn’t care less if he has an audience, or the air of someone who didn’t notice.

“It was worth a try. Besides, he deserved it for the stunt he pulled back in Central.” And then he rubs his hands together, like he’s just warming up. “So: Where can we go to brainstorm?”

\--

Ed and Al are directed to a private sitting room with couches, cushions, and a long, dressed table. There are two bookshelves that catch Ed’s eye, but he’s determined to focus on the task at hand: to find a way to recover Ling.

He realizes immediately that his notebook is in one of the duffel bags, and he has no idea where their belongings were hoisted off to after leaving them at the front gate, so he can’t devise a list.

Lan Fan, despite Greed’s every grievance, tells him to report back to the royal courtroom, and she assures the boys they’ll return sometime soon.

Ed sighs and falls back into the sofa, sinking.

“Are you not going to tell Greed? About Scar?” Al asks, but it doesn’t sound pressing.

“No.” Ed can still feel the furniture trying to devour him, but it’s inviting, in a way. His feet hurt, and his ankles too, and now that he doesn’t have a destination in mind, he wants to rest until they rendezvous. “If it was Ling, that might be another story. But I don’t want to drag Greed away from his responsibilities here. It’s a wonder he’s getting anything done at all.”

“I’m sure he’s doing a fine job,” Al says.

Ed smiles tiredly. “You don’t know him as well as I do. If we tell him about Scar, he’ll want to tag along, and who knows how deep this all goes. We might as well hear what Scar has to say, and then decide from there.”

“He said to meet him at midnight…” Glancing around the room, Al looks for a clock, but there isn’t one. “I wonder what time it is now.”

Ed instinctually reaches for his belt, hand groping for his pocket watch, and then he _really_ sinks into the sofa.

“ _Dammit…_ ” he curses to himself.

“Yeah,” Al says, brow furrowed in sympathy. “Sorry, brother.”

The window shudders with the howl of wind, and Al turns his head. Because the curtains are pulled open, they can see, as well as hear, as rain begins to fall, droplets ticking across the window panels.

“Looks like it’s going to come down hard.”

Ed watches with him, glad they hadn’t waited outside for another thirty or so minutes. Greed always did have good timing. “I read that the sloping roofs on the larger buildings here in Xing were built to deter rainfall. We’re lucky we’ve avoided most of the typhoons until we showed up. Summer can be bad for them.”

“You mean there was useful information in that ancient book of yours, after all?”

“All information is useful, Al.”

Al laughs quietly. “That’s true.”

They talk for about an hour about what they learned about Xing during their journey, speculate about Scar, and Ed makes it clear how relieved he is that Greed is alright. It makes it seem like the rest will be easy in comparison, but most things are, after what they’ve gone through with recovering their bodies.

Al starts to feel like he’s ready to doze off, especially when Ed falls quiet.

There’s a scratch at the window glass that draws his attention back to the room, and Al gasps quietly when he sees an animal there—a cat—drenched and reaching up her top two paws as she looks at them with the wide eyes of desperation.

“Oh, Al…” Ed starts, watching his brother cross over to pull open the window. Al can’t quite figure it out at first, but eventually he notices the latch, flipping it. “No, don’t let it in— Al—”

The wind outside is howling, and even though it’s still technically day, the clouds that had moved into the area darken the sun. The cat scrambles up and into Al’s arms with his help, and he curls up the bottom of his shirt to wrap her like a blanket before shutting the window again.

“Aughh…” Ed grimaces, but he doesn’t move from his cushion sandwich.

“It’s alright,” Al tells her, holding her with both arms as he returns to his seat in one of the lounge chairs. He picks up one of the decorative cushions on the floor—a brown patterned pillow that’s tacked down in the middle—and holds it against his chest to help warm her up.

She eyes him and shivers. The breeze outside was actually pretty humid, but inside the palace walls, it’s a bit colder in comparison, especially for drenched fur.

She’s a sturdy looking cat, with light green eyes and a medium coat, striped with tan and dark brown.

Al is enamored, but Ed is frowning deeply.

“What?” Al says. “I couldn’t just leave her out there.”

“It’s just… We’re guests here, and—”

“ _Ling_ would understand.”

Ed continues frowning. He’s not a fan of this new trend where Al uses Ling to get Ed to do his bidding, and beyond that, he’s certainly not a fan that it _works_.

And speak of the devil, the door opens and there’s Greed, and Ed finally, after over an hour of making himself a fixture in the couch, sits up.

“Greed, tell Al—”

“Can I keep this cat?” Al asks quickly, gripping her under the arms and holding her out for Greed to see.

The meow she lets out is soft-spoken, but full of life.

“Huh…?” Greed looks between the both of them, but then he approaches, reaching down to let the new cat sniff his hand.

“She was outside, and it’s _pouring_ , and she doesn’t have a collar or anything, and—”

Ed is clearly ruffled. “Okay, but—”

“Sure,” Greed says. “You found her outside? What, the window?” He thumbs to it, as the only point of entry in sight, and Al nods, cradling the cat again. “I say that’s a good omen. I found Chow Mein outside, too. Or, rather, he found _me_.”

“Who’s… Chow Mein?” Ed asks.

“My cat! See? It works out perfectly, like it’s meant to be.”

“Oh my god.”

Al continues drying her, especially around the ears, and she’s begun to purr, so both Al and Greed smile.

“Why’d you name her Chow Mein?” Al asks him.

“Him,” Greed corrects and Al nods, “I’m pretty sure, anyway. But I think he just happened to show up when I was at my worst, and it felt right to name him after food when I was trying to, uh… You know.”

“Bring Ling back?”

He looks sheepish, and shrugs with one shoulder. “Yeah. I guess.”

“I think that’s sweet,” Al tells him. He unfurls his very wet shirt, shivering a bit himself now. “Maybe we can keep the theme going, for good luck.” He scratches the striped cat’s butt, just above her tail, and she pushes up with her back legs, arching into it. “Can you think of any striped foods?”

“Cinnamon rolls,” Ed says, pretty quickly. Greed and Al both glance at him with twin looks of judgement, slightly amused. “It’s the first thing that came to mind.”

“I guess her coat kinda reminds me of _sushi_ rolls,” Greed adds thoughtfully, running with Ed’s idea.

“Sushi wouldn’t be a bad name,” Al agrees. “I just don’t think it fits her. Oh— What about… Seaweed?”

Ed’s voice is toneless. “Seaweed.”

“Yeah, her stripes look like it, sort of. And she was all wet, and I had to dry her off.”

“It’s kinda cute,” Greed agrees. “I like it.”

Ed repeats, “Seaweed,” again, baffled, but they’re both cooing over her, and he puts his head in his hand, shaking it slowly. Unbelievable. Even ‘Cinnamon Roll’ would’ve been a better name than that.

But admittedly, it _is_ nice to see Greed and Al bonding.

“If you have a cat, do you have any food? I’d like to feed her, just in case, even though she looks okay. And… I could probably use a shower, honestly.”

“You smell like wet animal,” Ed says, closing his eyes again.

Greed is still scratching behind her ear from where he’s crouched, and she curls into Al’s chest. “Sure,” he says. “Lan Fan can show you to your room; you can ask her to get cat food for you. She’s just outside.”

Alphonse loops his arms back under Seaweed’s paws, making her comfortable. “Will you be okay, brother?”

Ed waves his arm lazily, dismissive, and Greed smiles like he has a plan.

“Don’t worry,” Greed tells Al. “I’ll take good care of him.”

When the door closes behind Al, Greed plops down on the couch next to Ed, draping his arm languidly behind Ed’s head. Ed opens one eye to side-eye him.

“Tired, huh?” Greed asks. “I don’t blame you. You came all this way just for me.”

“Don’t let it go to your head. I came for Ling, too. When I get my notebook and a good night’s rest, I’ll have him out in no time. I say… three days _tops_.”

Greed smirks, bending his wrist so he can run his fingers through the front of Ed’s hair. “That’s my boy,” he says, and Ed lets out a soft breath, feeling genuinely relaxed for the first time in as long as he can remember.

He stays quiet for a while, Greed’s hand carding slowly through his hair, and he has to fight sleep, because he _is_ happy to see him, and his mind is having trouble wrapping around the idea that Greed isn’t actually gone.

“Do Al and I have separate rooms?” Ed asks, craving conversation.

“Yeah. They’re next to each other.”

“Alright, that… won’t really be necessary. I need to keep an eye on him.”

“You can sleep wherever the hell you like as far as I’m concerned. I’m kinda the boss around here.”

Ed laughs under his breath. “You don’t say.”

He lolls his head to the side to look at Greed, feeling the weight of the past two months lifting from his shoulders. He knows there are overarching goals here, like getting information for Mustang, and meeting with Scar in some ‘grotto’, and problem solving the hell out of Ling’s absence. But he feels like he has purpose enough just being here with Greed, in a way silence and safety and simplicity has never felt rewarding before.

Greed moves off the couch and it grabs Ed’s attention, but he doesn’t know how to ask him to stay. A hand reaches out to offer to pull him up, and if it was anyone else, Ed thinks he wouldn’t be so quick to accept it.

“I’ve got a treat for you,” Greed says, pulling Ed to his feet.

“Ugh, my legs are _killing me_.”

“Good.” Greed grins when Ed makes a face at him. “It’ll make the surprise even better.”

Edward is guided by the newly appointed Emperor of Xing down the halls of the palace, past a store room, several guest rooms, and the main library—to which he cranes his head in interest. He wonders which guest room Al is in, if any of them, but there’s so much to look at that he doesn’t ask.

“Where are we going?” Ed finally says, and Greed pulls open the double doors, glancing at Ed for his reaction.

“Welcome to my crib.”

Ed wanders inside, looking from armoires and the full length mirror, to the extravagant bed with a red cat perched in the center of it, the cluttered desk, gaudy rugs, chaise lounge, and all the way to the stylized alkahestry floor design.

“It’s so… you.”

“Thanks! I know.” Greed crosses to the other side of his bed, just beyond where Ed can see, and digs into one of the bags from the market. He retrieves a round container filled with a pink-tinted substance that shifts like sand. “Fancy bath salts, just for you,” he says. “I bought some for myself, of course, but I got a different scent.”

“For me?” Ed asks, even as Greed hands them over. He can’t read most of the label, other than where there’s a translation that says, ‘rose-lavender.’

“Go ahead— You deserve to loosen up.” He nods to the curtain that sanctions off the bathroom, the same dark wine red of the curtains on the windows.

“Wow. You show up in a foreign country, and suddenly it’s like you’re royalty. This is basically the opposite of what happened to Ling.”

Ed unthreads the lid, takes a sniff of the aroma, and is easily enticed by the idea of a bath.

“It says on there that it’s good for muscle soreness and fatigue,” Greed tells him.

“You can read this?” Ed makes his way to the bathroom, but he sounds impressed.

“More or less. It’s a work in progress.”

Edward closes the curtain behind him, and Greed sits on the end of the bed, reaching out to pet Chow Mein. The cat tucks his paws under the front of his chest, left looking like a loaf of bread instead of a cat, purring near-immediately.

“That’s still something to be proud of.” There’s about a foot of a gap between the bottom of the curtain and the floor where Greed can see Ed toeing off his shoes. “If it wasn’t for the fact that Ling isn’t talking to you, I’d be skeptical that it was _you_ translating.”

“Give me some credit,” Greed says. “Picking up languages has always been like second nature to me. Remember that Aerugonian woman we talked to when Darius lost his watch?”

Ed laughs, taken off guard by the memory as he starts up the water. “He was so relieved that she found it that I didn’t think much about the fact you held a conversation with her.”

“I know Aerugonian _pretty_ well. I used to know some Drachman, but that was back when I worked in the north, over a century ago. I know sign language, too. Did I tell you that?”

“No, you didn’t.” The water splashes a bit as Ed gets in. “Who taught you?”

The question makes Greed stop mid-pet, and Chow Mein looks up at him with intelligent eyes that helps shake Greed out of it.

“My ex-girlfriend,” he says. “You met her once. Blonde hair. Snake tattoo. Pretty flexible.”

It takes Ed a moment to place, but he’s glad Greed can’t see him from behind the curtain. He forms a little ‘o’ with his mouth, and suddenly he can only see pools of blood as Armstrong pulls a corpse from Al’s unconscious body. “That was your girlfriend?”

“Ah, yeah, well… You can thank Ling for that.” Ed doesn’t respond, so Greed adds: “He just helped me come to realize a lot about myself I didn’t know, or didn’t want to accept. I probably wouldn’t have called her my girlfriend before I met him.

“‘ _Met’,”_ Greed muses over his own word, “Took over his body and mind. Whatever you wanna call it. I was a different person before then, at least in the ways it counted.”

“You weren’t a fully formed person until _you_ decided to be, Greed. That was your own choice.”

“Maybe. But—” Greed doesn’t know how to formulate his thoughts on the matter.“Ling… he’s—” It’s complicated, sure, but it’s also deeply rooted in emotion, and that’s not territory he’s comfortable voicing aloud.

The way he feels about Ling and the way he feels about Ed— it’s more than just slapping a label on a relationship from his past. It’s more than acknowledging what could have been, because it very much _is,_ and it’s all encompassing, and Greed only knows how to live in the Now.

“I know you’re scared,” Ed says after a long moment, and even though Greed wants to argue, he’s glad Ed understands. “But this isn’t forever. I told you. I’m going to pull him out and then we can accuse him of slacking off on his duties. That’ll teach him.”

Greed smiles a small smile, the urge to fight back against his emotions waning. “Full permission to kick his ass, even though I’ll be the one to suffer for it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Ed says, a smile in his voice as well. “Tell me what else you’ve done to try to wake him up. Last time it was because you were compromised.”

“You mean rage-fit inducing out-of-my-mind _pissed?_ Yeah. But that didn’t really… wake him up. It just gave him enough leeway to overpower me.”

“We might as well try,” Ed says. There’s another swish of the water as he dangles one of his hands over the side of the tub, and Greed can see the edges of his fingers under the curtain.

“Try pissing me off?” Greed clarifies. “That’s pretty hard to do, y’know. I like to think of myself as a paragon of self control.”

Ed scoffs a laugh, but it’s way funnier than he can express, so he breaks into a little bout of laughter that has Greed defensively saying, “ _What??”_

“Nothing— Nothing,” Ed says, trying to stifle his laughter. “But, heh, my point was…” He laughs a bit more, covering his mouth. “I didn’t mean you had to be angry for it to work. Just… overwhelmed. Something that overrides your emotions, or your mind, at the very least.”

“Like sex?”

“What—? No! I mean, maybe. But— No!”

“Like alcohol?”

“I— Wh—” Ed already has his hand close to his face, so he just presses it over his eyes and draws it down, until his mouth is hanging open, appalled.

“I already tried drinking,” Greed says forlornly. “I tried to drink as much as I could, and on an empty stomach, too. But it didn’t work.”

Ed’s voice softens. “What happens when you focus inwards? Just cut out all outside stimuli and… listen?”

“Mmm… Mm-mm.”

“What? What’s _that_ mean?”

Chow Mein hops off the bed and when Greed realizes he’s going for the window, Greed follows after him to open the door to the balcony.

“How do I explain this in the least horrifying way possible…”

“Oh no.”

“Let’s just say there’s a reason I’m not in touch with my philosopher’s stone. There’s all these tortured souls trapped in there, and they kinda put a downer on things, and—”

“Yeah— Yeah, okay. You can stop.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Greed watches Chow Mein hop up onto the railing, and the cat turns his head to stare at Greed in return. It’s still pouring outside, but after a few minutes of Greed waiting for him, and once Chow Mein knows he has Greed’s attention, he bounds down the slope of the roof below them. It feels very pointed, like he won’t be coming back any time soon.

Greed watches the rain even after he can’t tell where Chow Mein has disappeared to, the sound helping to clear his mind, and his thoughts circle back to his meetings early that morning. It’s easy to get whisked away by Ed’s presence and Ling’s contrasting absence, but he knows he has to focus on being Emperor above anything else.

The last thing he wants is for Ling to be disappointed in him when they speak next.

There’s a shift in the air outside that breaks him from his reverie, like a sixth sense Greed didn’t know he had sparks inside of him, alerting him to— Something. It makes him feel cold, and death itself creeps up his shoulder with a boney-fingered hand as he stares out the window intensely.

He doesn’t even know he’s doing it when he activates his shield, letting the carbon crawl up his left arm as both a warning and a defense mechanism. He _dares_ whatever’s out there to challenge him.

“Hey, Greed?” he hears Ed’s voice call from the bathroom. Greed isn’t sure how much time has passed, but Chow Mein hasn’t returned, so he closes the balcony door.

“Yeah?”

The sound of Ed getting out of the bath brings his eyes back to the curtain.

“You don’t happen to know where they took my bags, do you? I can just put these clothes back on if I have to, but I’d rather… not.”

“I have something you can wear,” Greed says. “I’m sure your bags are in the room Al’s in.”

He leaves the window and opens up his armoire to find Ed clothes, something comfortable and loose fitting. He can’t help but glance at the window once more, just on the edge of paranoia.

The curtain to the bathroom pulls open, and it’s the noise that startles Greed, but the sight that keeps him staring.

Greed blinks.

Edward stands in the open, a towel around his waist as he drys the ends of his hair with a second towel. Greed’s mouth falls partway open, and the sweet aroma from the steam hits him in waves.

His left hand is still a black clawed thing that disappears into the sleeve of his robe. It’s befitting, as a symbol of his avarice shining through the soul he so carefully crafted.

He shuts the drawer he collected the clothes from, and stalks across the hardwood with slow strides.

"Here," he whispers, eyes intense again. It’s a different feeling than that of the window, staring with less purpose and more out of building desire, cutting deep to the true nature of his existence.

"Thanks…” Edward says as he grabs the clothes without really looking at them. "Uh, is there any particular reason you've got your shield up?"

Greed doesn't answer right away and Edward assumes he's confused: “Your arm."

Ed observes Greed’s hand. He's seen it countless times in battle and in attempts to protect himself, but he’s never really admired it before now.He smiles slowly. That power Ling and Greed have is alchemy in its truest form, and it's beautiful.

“I felt like something was wrong, but it might just be me. I like to be prepared for anything.”

“Sounds like you've got it all figured out, don't you?" Ed says, almost flirtatiously, watching Greed’s dark hand curl into a fist.

Greed is looking at his shield too, touching the diamond-like texture with his human hand. "Not everything," he says, finally catching Ed's gaze again. "But enough."

There's this energy between them that ignites when Ed smiles again, and then he says, "Alright. I'm gonna change," and Greed finds himself internally at war. He isn't known for his willpower, and the proximity is far too much now in light of his frustration, and his stress, and his pride. And the armored hand reaches out quickly, grabbing right above Ed's elbow to stop him.

“Ahh— _Hey!”_ Ed says, taken off guard by the pressure, and the towel he used for his hair drops to the ground before he turns his head. “Greed…?”

Greed licks his lips, gaze dropping to Edward’s mouth with every intention to make himself as clear as possible. His grip is only as tight as it needs to be, and he presses on the attack, pinning Ed's left arm—his stronger arm—behind his back, guiding him to the wall by the bathroom like a hostage. His body sidles up against Ed's back, his mouth coming to Ed's ear.

“I missed you so much,” he whispers coolly, and Ed’s breath hitches in the back of his throat. “And you—”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Ed says instinctually.

Greed’s hand is half way down his chest, fingernails lightly scratching down Edward’s front before he stops at his words.

“I wouldn’t want you to be. You’re _mine._ ”

It takes some shifting, and the folded clothes fall like the towel had, but Ed gets his right arm free. Grabbing Greed’s wrist, Ed stares at him from the side, face warm and flushed, and Greed’s grip on Ed’s pinned arm doesn’t slacken, even when Ed tries to tug out of it.

Ed breathes out, “What are you _doing?_ ” just before Greed’s tongue curves the inside of Ed’s ear, hot and wet, and Ed shrieks, hoisting up his automail leg to slam his heel down on Greed’s foot.

Greed’s head drops to Ed’s shoulder as he draws in a sharp breath, and even though Ed feels like he can’t breathe, he forces himself to think logically.

"Hey, Greed! What would _Ling_ be saying to you right now?"

 _That_ throws him completely off guard. Greed's grip slackens.

It's enough for Ed to shove him away, and Greed stumbles a little, watching as Ed has to swoop his hand down to grab the towel as it starts to unravel. He holds it together in the front, knees wobbly, and dazed.

“I didn't think you were this oblivious— You— You’re the one who came out here in nothing but a towel. Do you not _want_ me?”

“I—“ Ed’s face goes blank. "That's not— You're avoiding my question!" Edward points at Greed accusatorially, back thudding flat against the wall.

"This wasn't how this was supposed to go.” Greed presses his teeth together and makes a long noise of frustration that builds in volume after a moment, then turns and crosses his arms. "He’d call me an _asshole_. Impractical. _Tactless_. Is that what you want to hear?" And then he steadies Edward with his gaze again. "Newsflash! I _am_ all of those things! And proud!"

“That’s not _true_ ,” Ed denies. He wants to fall to the floor so badly, and he knows how embarrassingly bright his cheeks must be, but he stands his ground.

“I am without _him_.”

It breaks Ed’s heart. He doesn’t know what to do, and he feels vulnerable in nothing but a towel.

“How many times do I have to tell you that _Ling_ isn’t what makes you human,” Ed says. He crouches down carefully and retrieves the fallen clothes, gripping them in a tight fist. “The choices you make are your own. But this is one you should probably make _with_ him.”

When Greed doesn’t respond, whether out of guilt or frustration, Ed takes the opportunity to slip back into the bathroom to get dressed.

“I’m not mad at you,” he says. “But I’m going to leave and check on Al. I think you need some time alone.”

There’s still no response, so Ed furrows his brow, looking in the mirror as he tries to figure out which side of his shirt is supposed to be in the front. He finishes by pulling his hair up in a ponytail.

Edward pulls back the curtain and looks at Greed—he’s standing at the balcony doors, left hand resting on one of the glass panels. Ed can see the ouroboros tattoo on the back of his hand, skin reverted back to Ling’s natural tone.

“I’ll see you later, okay?”

Greed turns his head to look at Ed, eyes raking down his body to take him in in this new light—appreciating the Xingese style on him from afar. It makes Ed feel warm all over again, and the feeling doesn’t go away, even when he leaves the room.

It’s all Ed can think about, even when he realizes he still doesn’t know where he’s going, and Greed’s breath on his neck is still on his mind even when he does, finding Al curled up and asleep with his striped cat like a halo around his head.


	17. Chapter 17

Ed has so much pent up energy from his encounter with Greed and no where to channel it. He’s never been the type to think sexually—he’s never had the _time_ —and now that it’s on his mind, he finds it’s all encompassing. It’s an odd feeling. One he wants to welcome, even though the situation is complicated, and for every moment he lets his mind wander, he learns a little more about himself.

He notices his duffel bag at the foot of the bed and immediately digs into it for his notebook to distract himself, but he sighs softly as he stares at the cover, because he knows he won’t be able to think clearly enough to come up with ideas.

He looks to the window and, despite the rain, he can tell it’s beginning to grow darker outside—it must be sundown. But that means midnight is still a long way’s off, and the idea of spending all this time in his head is a daunting one.

He closes his eyes for one moment and he can feel Greed’s hand on his chest and hear his low voice in his ear, and his head is spinning all over again. It’s the type of adrenaline he wants to chase—the kind he’s been chasing all his life; but this way, it’s objectively easier to obtain.

In theory.

No, no. Thinking about it is _not_ an option. He has to rationalize. He has to be the logical one in this situation, because Greed—Ling—both of them?—they’re Emperor of a country, and Greed might be his friend, but he’s also the _embodiment_ of Greed, and Ed _knows_ that, and Ed has always been the one to put him in his place when Greed tries to act on his every whim.

But it’s _so_ hard to separate Greed’s in-the-moment impulses from something more, and Edward desperately wants to have information on the whole ordeal, as he is wont to do, but that would require… investigation. It would require destroying the boundaries he tried so desperately to set in the moment, not necessarily to give him more time to consider the consequences, but to make sure he could respect his friend’s wishes. Ling’s wishes.

He can feel blood warming up both his brain and his stomach and he shakes his head hard and grabs the Xingese book he brought with him. He’s already read it, but he’ll read it again. And again, if he has to.

He sits down on the bed beside Alphonse and hopes his presence will unleash his inner paternal instinct or… something. Anything is better than this.

_‘In an ancient Xingese belief, Hell was called Naraka, which is likely what the modern day Xingese Hell is derived from. Experts believe it was considered a series of cavernous layers which extended below the Human Realm—the Earth’s surface—blanketed in extreme heat, or the absence thereof.’_

Ed’s hand grips the book tightly, and he forces himself to reread those two sentences many times, the image of Greed’s fierce red eyes staring back at him with unblanketed desire.

_‘There are eight of each: eight hot Narakas and eight cold Narakas, beginning with the cold ‘blister’ Naraka, a dark frozen plain surrounded by icy mountains and blizzards, and ending with the hot ‘uninterrupted’ Naraka, where beings are roasted in an immense blazing oven._

_‘It is taught that rebirth into Naraka is temporary, while the offenders work off the karma they garnered in life. Some believe rebirth in the ’uninterrupted’ Naraka (or any lower realm for that matter) should be seen as a process of purification.’_

There’s nothing else quite like reading about the fires of Hell to put a person’s dirty thoughts to rest.

Thank Hell he can finally get some sleep.

\--

“Brother?” Al says, and he’s shaking Ed’s arm. It’s Ed’s weaker arm, and when he wakes up, he’s blindingly aware of the fact his arm is attached to his body like it’s supposed to be, rather than a hunk of metal with nerves.

It shoots adrenaline to his heart. He sits up.

“Wha— What?”

“It’s eleven fifteen. We should go.”

“What! How did that happen?”

Al pulls the sheets from Edward’s lap, the biggest hint he can give to get a move on.

“I don’t know… the passage of time?”

He looks to the window, and it’s certainly pitch black outside, the rain calmed down from the pouring torrent of the late afternoon to paced showers that hit the glass a little lighter. Seaweed is perched up on the windowsill, but Al tugs hard on Ed’s arm with a final warning.

“Something tells me Scar’s not going to wait around for us if we’re late.”

Edward adjusts his clothes and puts on his jacket, and when he heads out the door, he swears he sees Greed’s cat outside his window, looking at Al’s.

\--

Ed doesn’t like Scar, but the guy is certainly reliable.

He spends most of their trip to the grotto by the Jianxian bridge doing two things: debating how the hell to say ‘Jianxian,’ and reflecting on his grudge against Scar. He has some semblance of respect for him, and he trusts him, but that doesn’t mean he has to like him, and he probably never will.

And just like reading about Hell, thinking about the person who murdered his best friend’s parents does a superb job of keeping his thoughts away from _Greed_ territory.

“You’re finally here,” Scar says, arms crossed where he sits on the stone table that’s likely used for tourist photos. There’s a large shrine behind it made of wood and red metal pieces, the effigy of some moon goddess in the arch way.

“‘Finally’?” Al says. “We’re not late.”

Scar pulls a pocketwatch from his pants pocket to check the time. It doesn’t even look like Ed’s, but it doesn’t have to; Edward growls under his breath when he sees it.

“You’re right. It’s exactly midnight. I suppose I mistook you for the type who makes an appearance with time to spare. Early to everything.”

“I am!” Ed says. “Or, I try to be, anyway.”

Scar levels him with an unimpressed expression. “I’ll cut to the chase.”

Al rests a hand on Ed’s arm, and Ed can feel him swaying a little. He’s only about two months into his recovery, which Ed is very aware of, and he guides his little brother to the floor, sitting with him.

“There’s no need for you to get involved, but there’s also no point in keeping you in the dark about this. The girl— No— _May_ ,” he amends, “she and I are more than capable of apprehending the killer.”

“Killer—?” Ed demands at the same time Al says, “May?”

Scar looks between them from where he leans on the table slowly, as if waiting for more unwelcome input. When they only stare expectantly, he continues.

“Supposedly this heretic is committing familicide, or perhaps simply siblicide. I’m not sure how deeply the killings run, but it’s truly a sin in the eyes of God. To take the life of your own kin… Even on one occasion, it would be irredeemable.”

“Forget God,” Edward says. “Why would—”

“Watch your tongue, boy.” Scar sets his jaw, arms crossing.

They stare at each other in the dim light of the grotto, and it’s nearly overwhelming how close not only Ed, but _Alphonse_ is to the serial killer who literally got away with murder.

Ed can’t help himself: “Is that a threat?” he asks.

Scar doesn’t reply for a long moment, and Al doesn’t say anything either, but the tension fades as soon as Scar says, “No. Quit playing your childish games. Do you want to know more, or not?”

It shuts Ed up and Scar turns his focus on Al. Ed can’t tell if it’s pointed or not.

“I received a letter from May during my stay at the Armstrong manor. It wasn’t a pleasant letter to receive and I wasn’t—”

“You stayed at Major Armstrong’s house?” Ed asks. It’s clear Scar’s patience is thinning, so Ed puts up both hands and says, “Sorry, sorry. Continue.”

“ _I wasn’t_ _sure_ where I wanted to be at the time. It felt wrong to reintegrate myself with my people, and I didn’t want to sit by and watch as the country took another military officer as its figurehead. Nothing felt like my place anymore.

“Olivier invited me to join her in the North. I have to admit, aspects of it were appealing. But ultimately, I refused to be under the thumb of the Amestrian military, especially when there are too many uncertainties about what the future holds. I don’t want to give into that anger again, but there is still a great deal of it, brewing under the surface. And I’m coping with that in any way I can.”

He takes a moment, setting his jaw.

“Why are you telling us this?” Al asks.

“So you have full disclosure of my intentions, and to know I’m on your side.”

Ed tilts his head. “Your intentions?” he says. “What I’m gathering from this is that your calling is to be a vigilante.”

“If that’s what helps you sleep at night,” Scar says plainly. “I don’t personally like the term, but I don’t care if that’s how you view me. May provided me with the answer I wanted. Now that I’ve killed out of revenge, I don’t know if that desire will ever go away. Not truly.

“But I’d like for my anger to be channeled through different avenues. It cannot be disputed that the state alchemists I killed were murderers—that’s simply a fact—but it haunts me that I came close to taking the life of an innocent child merely because of your title.”

It takes Edward a second to process what he means. “I’m not a—” But he stops himself and his mouth hangs open as it registers that this is the closest Scar will ever get to an apology. Ed nods, but he doesn’t say anything else.

“I’m not here for you, or for your Emperor friend,” Scar tells them. “I’m here because May asked me for my help, and I felt like I had no purpose left in this world. But I am _here_ ,” he gestures around them, “in _this_ place, with you now, for your sake. It won’t be enough, but it’s the least I can do.”

“What did May say?” Al asks. “In her letter?”

“While she was gone—on the hunt for the philosopher’s stone—a wave of murders ravished her country. Seven of the royal children were killed, and one went missing. This missing child is thought to be the cause, but because May and,” he nods to Ed, “the other one—”

“Ling,” Ed says, frowning.

“Yes. Because they were gone as well, rumors circulated about the possibility of them being the perpetrator.

“May knows for certain it was the missing child. Two days after your friend left her with her clan, the man came to her, intent on executing her. She escaped and fled to the Yao clan, but was not welcomed there. I believe this was after the current Emperor had already—”

“Ling,” Ed repeats.

“I don’t see why names are important if you know who I’m referring to. They’re arbitrary things, as far as your cultures are concerned.”

“You don’t know that.”

Scar mulls over Ed’s quick, impulsive comment, probably more than he should. He’s unsure how to respond to it at first, and then he concedes, and Ed feels proud for no reason other than it feels like a minor victory.

“I… suppose that may be true. _Ling_ , then. I believe he’d already left for Hangzhou before May had shown up in Yao territory. She was in hiding until I could locate her, and we travelled here, under the assumption the heretic would make an attempt on… Ling’s life.”

Al sits forward a little, and it looks like he wants to stand, so Ed holds his elbow in case he needs to spot him. “Is she okay?” Al’s voice is ripe with concern.

“Yes, and stronger for it. She was in good hands when it happened.”

“And Shao May?”

“Alive,” Scar says. “If only by the skin of her teeth.”

There’s a flash of red light and Scar pushes off of the table, taking two steps forward and towards the opening they walked in from, urgent. Ed is on his feet in seconds, turning on the heel of his foot, although it doesn’t feel like they’re under duress, or even compromised.

“What was that?” Ed asks. He turns his head to Al when he feels his brother pulling on him for support to stand, then focuses his attention back to the entrance. The red is far gone.

Scar’s hands curl into fists. “ _Damn_. You two should stay here. Don’t go back to the palace.”

“What? _Why?”_ It’s a demand laced in worried self-interest. He’s been here a day and it feels like that building is his home base—a sanctuary.

Scar focuses his gaze on Edward, his body only part way turning to him. Ed feels like he can sense that _itch_ he was talking about; the itch to take a life and to forge himself in the fires of wrath.

“I told you there’s no need for you to get involved.” Scar takes off for the entrance in a hurry, and Al reaches down for Ed’s hand, grounding him. “You’d just get in the way.”

Edward takes a single half-step in that direction.

He wants to _know_ what’s happening. His eyes yearn after the arch-shaped entrance to the grotto, his left arm reaching out in despondence where he can just barely see the outline of the palace in soft, distant lighting; his heart meets resistance with the feeling of Al’s fingers interlaced with his on his right.

The left hand for Greed, and the right, as ever, for his brother.

“This isn’t why we came to Xing, brother,” Al says, voice delicate long after Scar has disappeared from view.

Ed finally meets Al’s eyes. He can tell how reluctant he is to get involved, and a part of Ed wonders if Al was hoping this sort of peril was behind them.

“It isn’t?”

Ed can’t remember the last thing he said to Greed. He’s afraid, and he can’t remember the last thing he said; he can only remember the way Greed looked at him—hungry, and morose, and silent.

“I can’t,” Ed whispers, flooded with determination. “I can’t lose him again.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a scene that's violent/gross; it didn't seem too bad to me, just as much as you'd expect from FMA:B, but I figured I'd prepare you anyway.

Lan Fan busies herself after showing Alphonse where he can sleep and where they keep the cat food. She enjoys her time with him more than she expects; even though she knows logically she likes the Elrics, it’s nice to actually be in their presence again to have it proven. Reassuring, even, since before leaving her clan, she was determined she’d never take a liking to anyone outside of it.

Al doesn’t understand their culture, but he’s warmhearted and open to it when she explains why he should take off his shoes at the door to his bedroom—it’s unhygienic, and considered rude otherwise—and he nods with the awe that comes with new knowledge. She says he should be mindful, and do it in restaurants and places of work or worship as well, and he admits that he read a book about Xingese customs and wishes that was in there.

They laugh, she gets acquainted with the new cat with little resistance, and he asks about May Chang, to which she tells him she returned to the Chang clan.

But she busies herself after she leaves Al to his devices because she knows Greed will cherish his time with Edward, and she knows now that it’s more private in nature than just catching up with a good friend.

Besides, she trusts that, with or without alchemic abilities, Edward is much more trustworthy of a body guard than any of these palace guards, even if she thinks he wouldn’t be quite up to par with her own abilities.

She faces the council, despite her concerns about being replaced, and that doesn’t go as horribly as she imagined it would either. She realizes she might have unreasonably low expectations for how she expects her day-to-day to be, and self-realizing that makes her feel a little more at peace.

It makes having dinner alone a nice change for once. She also gets a nap, and that’s a pleasant experience.

When she decides it’s been long enough and she’s itching to return to her duties (rather than training with amateurs) she finds that Greed’s tucked away in his bedroom. His chi still gives off a rancid and powerful aura, one that she can sense from a much farther distance than most people, including Ling.

She’s in _tune_ with Ling’s chi, but Greed’s is something that makes itself known, like a thousand people at once and then some, screaming.

She thinks he might be sleeping when she comes up late, around eleven at night. She stands outside his door, and excuses the palace guard to take their place. She knows it’s still raining, or else she’d guard the window—she likes the outdoors and being in tune with the world around her. It helps her think.

In only the span of that first hour, she feels lonely. For the first time since her grandfather’s death, she’s aware just how alone she is, and how if she does this for the rest of her life, and doesn’t accept a secondary to work with her, she probably always will be.

But what’s the alternative?

Being stuck with someone she doesn’t know or doesn’t trust, or, more likely, both?

She turns her head quickly down the hall when she senses movement, but when all she sees is Chow Mein rounding the corner at the end, her tensed muscles relax.

“It’s just a cat,” she says in her native tongue, mostly to herself. She crouches low and puts a hand out for him, but his slow steps that would normally quicken to reach her, stay slow. She frowns. “It’s just me, boy.”

Lan Fan pulls down her mask to let it sit around her neck, hoping the animal will recognize her easier that way, but he still continues with one step at a time, grazing the wall with his side, his tail straight up in the air, the end of it moving back and forth in interest.

He makes it to the first door at the end of the hall. She can see his bright gold eyes staring directly into hers, and it’s clear now he’s not wary of her, just taking his time.

Lan Fan glances at the doors to Greed’s bedroom.

Greed _loves_ this cat—he only ever lets him out onto the balcony, or the roof, and has made it clear to her he doesn’t want to share him with the palace staff.

She looks back to Chow Mein, and his eyes shine in a way that makes her feel uneasy.

Lan Fan straightens up from her crouch and decides to go to him, instead. They meet in the middle of the hall, closer to the end, and she scoops him up into her arms, his eyes still fixated on her own. He’s not purring, but he doesn’t protest either.

Squinting in thought, Lan Fan asks, “How did you get out here?”

\--

A delicate hand reaches out and is placed on the wooden framing of the Emperor’s balcony doors. Symbols in a dark, burnt orange, span up the course of her arm from where it becomes visible as the fabric of her cloak exposes the skin. Rain sings down the slanted roof above her, and her Dragon’s Pulse tattoo, interrupted in places by sun god motifs, channels energy to her hand that interrupts the sound of the rain for just a moment’s time.

The door heats up, and the hinges too, so when she tests to make sure it’s unlocked—good, it _is_ , just as planned—it doesn’t creak from the cold of the night air.

She slips in quickly, shutting the door behind her with an accuracy that procures silence. Her hood slips back and there, on the back of her neck, is a simple tattoo of a sun, the left side with rays that extend from the simple circle, the right side filled in with color and devoid of rays.

The Emperor—the homunculus—she’d seen him once before, in that cemetery. That sad, hopeless place, only forged for the living and not for the dead.

No… She knows where the dead go. And it’s not lingering in a cold, empty field filled with decay.

She stands over his bed, looking at his face and his long, dark hair. He’s only a child, on a technical level.

But then again, so is Zai Ban. At least to her.

She’s seen God’s design and all the secrets to the world around them. And to anyone who’s seen the Truth and paid the toll, the world is filled with children who will never learn.

This will be easy.

She’ll either kill him now, and Zai Ban will dispose of any other contenders for the throne, or she won’t, and she’ll know for certain what’s at his core.

The Philosopher’s Stone.

Her hand juts out, no hesitation or remorse within her, and Greed’s eyes shoot open as her hand grips unforgivingly around his throat.

His shield crawls up his neck quickly, forming up until his jawline, diamond-like carbon at the base of his skull. His hand hardens to match it, and in turn he grabs her in the same way, but he doesn’t squeeze her windpipe as hard as he could.

Naraka makes a strangled noise in the back of her throat, her mouth falling open. Greed’s pupils constrict with a disturbed fear when he can see her entire tongue cavity is missing, just leaving a gaping hole in her mouth that extends down to her throat.

“What the fuck are you?” he demands. She grunts at him. “No, seriously. What the fuck!”

The familiar gleam of an alchemic reaction draws his attention to her arm, and he lets out a short laugh. “Yeah, no thank you—”

But when he brings his other hand to Naraka’s wrist to pull her off, it _burns_ , and he realizes that this isn’t Ed’s signature move against him—she’s not turning his skin to pencil lead, it’s… something else.

“That’s not gonna work, whatever you’re trying to do,” he says, chuckling slightly but breathlessly. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

He’s about to knee her in the gut and throw her off, but the sharp odor of burnt toast and rotten eggs hits his nostrils as the shield at his neck burns away into black smoke, and Greed _panics_ , making grunting noises in shock, desperately grabbing at her too-hot arm. He can’t put enough pressure on it to remove her from him—the heat is too much to bear—and he can feel the second it burns through the rest.

“Son of a _bitch!_ ” he shrieks out.

Her hand melts entirely through him, his esophagus and spine, pushing through a little into the bed.

Greed’s body goes completely still, head decapitated.

\--

For Ling, time feels like it’s both still and never-ending at the same time. His spirit, his soul, his essence, it’s all spiraling through a vortex, and as he collides with a thousand other souls, it feels like he’s being torn apart again, and again.

And then he’s not surrounded by madness, and voices, and dread, and he doesn’t feel like he’s moving through a void anymore.

But he’s still in one.

Ling rubs his eyes hard, and instead of red, and blood, and fear, he’s surrounded by white.

Pure white. But it’s not bright—it’s not hard to look at. In fact, it’s pure simplicity in its truest form.

And what’s ahead of him is the visage, or perhaps the outline, of a person. It has no features, other than it looks human to some degree, or just shaped like a human. It’s sitting down, and he feels like it’s watching him, but it has no eyes.

“Here you are again,” it says to him. Its voice is objectively creepy, but it doesn’t make Ling feel afraid.

“Who are you?” Ling asks.

“I’m you,” it says. “The world. The Truth about the universe. The keeper of everything, and the keeper of nothingness. Existence itself. You might call me God.”

Ling studies the gateway behind the entity, then takes a step forward and looks behind himself, staring up at the great, intricate door.

“Why am I here?” he asks. “This is for alchemy.”

“Yes,” God says. “And no. It holds a person’s knowledge of the universe, and beyond that, still. Sure, it can be used for alchemy, but that’s not its sole purpose. It’s your potential, and your connexion to the world.”

Ling turns back to the visage quickly. “Am I dead?”

“You might be.”

The breath Ling releases comes in surprise, but he finds no matter how afraid he is, he can’t cry.

“What—? That doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, your body did just die. Your brain was destroyed in the process. Even if the philosopher’s stone repairs it, it will never be the same. So, in that essence, yes. For all intents and purposes, you are dead.”

“No… No! I— I can’t be dead!”

“Oh, but you are.”

Ling raises his hands to his face, staring at them as they shake. He knows if he could cry, all this pent up energy could go somewhere, but instead it just fills him to the brim with no escape.

“But, due to the peculiar nature of your situation, you have a choice.”

Ling drops his hands when the entity says this— it has his attention.

“You can join me here,” God says. “You can join your late mother, and the man who was like a father to you: Fu.”

“Or?”

“Or you can transfer yourself over to the philosopher’s stone completely.”

Swallowing hard, Ling looks back up at the gateway to leave. His soul remembers it as the place he passed through to escape the endlessness of Gluttony’s stomach, but he doesn’t remember ever being _here_ , in the in-between.

“What would that entail?” Ling asks.

“Your soul would belong to it. If the stone leaves your body, you leave your body behind as well. You become one with it, and everything that comes along with it.”

“So… I’d become a homunculus?”

“On the contrary,” it tells him, matter-of-fact. “You’d be becoming something entirely new. Both of you would. You would give over your portal of Truth to share with him, and he would share the stone’s power with you. Your life force would be connected.”

Ling already knows his answer before God is finished speaking, but there’s something about this place that prohibits him from speaking when the entity speaks.

Ling nods assuredly. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, I’ll do that. That’s okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I’m completely sure.”

God smiles, and its teeth are all molars, but that doesn’t make Ling afraid either.

The exit door opens.

“I can’t make the choice for you,” God says. “If you walk through that door, _you’re_ making the choice.”

Ling doesn’t walk. He runs.

\--

Naraka rubs her neck. She watches the sparks of the stone’s immense power begin to reform the Emperor’s body, and she finally notices the ouroboros tattoo as his hand rises to his face in a regenerative pose. The sign for immortality.

She waits until his eyes are reformed, and she speaks with her hands: _‘The rumors are true,’_ and there’s a brief moment of recognition as he subconsciously translates the sign language, a language Greed knows well.

Naraka backs away. She’s taken all the time she needs to consider her options, but the handle to Greed’s door shudders with force—someone knows she’s here.

She flees to the balcony before Lan Fan can defeat the locking mechanism.

Lan Fan inhales sharply—she can see in the dark as the top of Ling’s head finishes repairing, and it fills her with anger and trepidation. She runs to his side first, but he’s moving— so instead she rushes for the balcony in pursuit.

When Ling awakens, he’s shaking. He’s crying.

The release is everything he needs.

‘…Welcome back, partner,’ Greed says internally. His voice is soft, emotional, and still shaken from the deadly exchange.

Ling’s mind is flooded with memories, and suddenly he understands what the bodiless entity meant: he remembers everything from Greed’s lifetime. The violence, the joy, the war. His interactions with his siblings, their relationships, Martel, and women before her, and sometimes men. His bar, his passion, his inaction in protecting his chimeras and the guilt that came with it in the end.

It’s all distant though, and he doesn’t experience Greed’s thoughts on the matter, or how he grew from them (or didn’t), he just knows about the events in the order they happened. And in turn, Greed knows about _him_.

Ling, in a brief moment of time, obtains two-hundred years of memories. And Greed, who’s lived through all of those, gains another sixteen.

But there’s no time to discuss it.

“Lan Fan,” Ling breathes. He flings himself out of bed and rushes to the balcony, and Greed takes over to shout her name into the night.

“ _Lan Fan!”_ Greed yells. He can see the movement from where she shifts in the rain, but she doesn’t turn back to look at him. She doesn’t stop, and distress consumes Greed and Ling both, and they don’t have to voice anything to agree to follow after her.

Greed’s hair and clothes are soaking wet after only a few seconds in the downpour, as the rain picks up again and crashes down hard. _“Lan Fan!”_ he tries again.

‘This isn’t a fight she can manage on her own!’ Ling says.

“I _know_ ,” Greed responds aloud, looking every which way, teeth clenched from stress and the cold.

Ling takes over control again, more in tune with the Dragon’s Pulse. Greed may have his memories of his training, but he doesn’t have his finesse or his disposition.

He bounds up onto the rooftops, making his way into the city. He sheds his sleep shirt and uses the ultimate shield to keep the breeze from his wet skin. The water rolls off just as expected.

If he had just been more intuitive—if Ling had taken back control immediately instead of waiting for Greed to bound down the palace pagoda, or not taken so long trying to process what happened, or—maybe he could have stopped her by now.

Ling kicks the metal air vent on the top of a building, but he doesn’t think to activate the shield, so it actually kind of hurts and he lets out a howl of pain.

‘Alright, calm down,’ Greed says.

“Calm down?!” Ling demands aloud, at Greed, at the rain, his hands clenching, and nails digging into his palms. “I’m tired of people trying to do things without me! I’m tired of people trying to make sacrifices for me!”

‘Wha— Hold on. She’s not sacrificing _anything_ , she’s just trying to—‘

“I’m not talking about _Lan Fan!_ I’m talking about _you!_ How could you just— You just—”

He slides off the roof and makes it to the ground in a crouch, then shoves the dumpster behind the building he was perched on as hard as he can. It doesn’t help much.

‘If you’re talking about my old man… Ah. You were going to die,’ Greed counters.

“You don’t know that with absolute certainty!”

‘I didn’t know with absolute certainty if you’d live, either!’

Ling’s hand goes black and he punches the dumpster instead.

“You don’t have the right to take my choices from me! You—”

Greed seizes control of his body and, “Stop—” he punches the dumpster, too, “making such a racket!

“My decision was going to save your life, and there was no way of knowing we could actually overpower him together. Not everything's about blind faith and— and wishing on a _star_. Just because I'm still alive because of you doesn't mean what you did was any less _stupid!_ I did what I had to do.“

Ling tries to force control, but Greed only fights it for a second before giving it over, and Greed says, ‘What do you _want_ from me? There’s nothing I can do about it now.’

“I want you to fight _with_ me, you fool! Together, as friends! I don’t want you to think you’re some… lone wolf anymore. I don’t want you to pull something like that again!“

‘I’m not even a person, Ling! I'm a vice! I'm an _idea!_ I can't even feel— All I can do is _want_ , and I wanted to save _you!’_

Ling’s body heaves and then hangs, swaying until he leans against the wall of the building, soaked and blacked with carbon all the way up to his neck.

"You may have started as nothing more than an idea, but you have grown your own soul, Greed. One that bears the memories of the friends you've lost before. You think I don't know— You think I don't know that you wanted to save me since you couldn't save them…? Do you want me to thank you for that?”

He slinks down to his knees, and he can barely feel the water around him on his shins. “Fine,” Ling says. “Thank you, Greed, but—” He sighs. “Don’t. Do it. Again.”

They sit there in the dark and the cold, until Ling says softly, “I need you,” and he closes his eyes and curls up on the muddy back alley ground, tugging his knees close to his chest.

‘Need, huh?’ Greed says, voice matching Ling’s quiet tone. ‘I’ve got no use for being needed, you know.’

‘…Wanted, then,’ Ling offers instead, no longer speaking aloud. ‘How does that sound? I'd like you by my side for this.’

Greed chuckles. ‘I’m already here, partner.’

‘I know. I just felt it needed to be said.’

Ling can tell before there’s even a silhouette in the alley, that someone is there. He can tell it’s Lan Fan before he can make out her features, and he stands quickly, relieved.

‘Talk to her— This will all be derailed if she knows I’m here,’ Ling explains, and Greed takes control.

“Are you alright…?” Greed asks. He stops, and Lan Fan takes several steps towards him before putting her hand out, her fist upside down, holding something. He accepts the offer with his own hand, black claws unfurling.

A severed finger falls into his grasp, the slightest etchings of Naraka’s burnt orange tattoo just before where the knuckle begins. Greed gapes up at her, and he can see where she has blood under her nose, mostly washed away by the rain.

He pockets the finger quickly and pulls her into a hug, wrapping his arms around her tightly. He sucks in a deep breath.

“I’m glad you’re safe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading guys, let me know what you think!


	19. Chapter 19

Lan Fan is freezing. She shivers hard in Greed’s arms, and for her sake, he retracts his shield—it no doubt makes it worse having his frigid, rock-like, bare chest pressed against her.

She puts a hand between them even after he’s all skin again—it’s like ice—and he pulls away at the slight pressure, eyes widening.

“Sorry,” he says quickly over the rain, holding her at arms length. “I didn’t ask permission.”

It pleases Ling that Greed and Lan Fan have grown closer in his absence. He can vaguely remember some of the exchanges between them, now that he has all of Greed’s memories (as far as you can _have_ a memory, anyway), but other things, of course, worry him.

Like his exchange with Edward. He wishes more than anything he could’ve been there to ease the tension between them and to get to the bottom of the issue, but it seems too late to remedy. He wishes he knew more about Ed’s thoughts on the matter. He doesn’t remember him being angry, but Ed also didn’t act in that over the top way he sometimes does when he protests, and Ling feels there’s room for concern there.

And then it hits him. He hasn’t seen Ed for hours. If that woman broke into the palace, and Lan Fan is here with them—

‘Edward,’ Ling says to Greed.

‘What?’ Greed internally glowers. ‘Oh. Right. You saw that, did you? Is this the part where I’m supposed to be embarrassed?’

‘No, it’s not—‘

“It’s not y-you,” Lan Fan finally says. She comes back to herself, and Ling goes quiet. “Not— Not that you didn’t… ask… I—” Her bottom lip quivers, and Greed searches her face. He pulls the mask over her head to reveal that all the color from her face is gone, her lips a pale, drained color, lighter than even her cheeks.

“Whoa—” Greed says. “God, c’mere.” He pulls her into the hug again, then lifts her up into his arms after a second thought.

Yes, it’s raining, and it’s night, but it’s Xing in the middle of the summer, and Lan Fan was in pursuit, body active. How can she possibly feel like she was just caught up in a snowstorm?

‘What’s _wrong_ with her?’ Ling asks, as Greed holds her trembling body as close as physically possible. He hoists himself up onto the roof again.

‘I don’t know. But we need to get back to the palace.’

\--

“Al, I want you to promise me you won’t mention any of this to Greed,” Edward says, opening their umbrella: this time for actual rain, instead of as protection from the sun.

“Okay… But, why?”

“He doesn’t need anything else to stress over. He has enough on his plate already, and I’m sure I’m not helping.”

Al follows him to the bridge as the rain gives them some reprieve. He can see that flash of red light again and Ed hands Al the umbrella so he can jog to a higher vantage point to figure out where it’s coming from.

“It’s probably May,” Alphonse suggests, raising his voice. Ed turns and puts a finger to his lips to shush him, then waves him over to hurry it up. “But, Ed—” He reverts to a whisper as they look out to the city from the hill at the top of the bridge. “I think you should tell Greed about Scar. I don’t see how that could make things worse. If someone really is going after him, he should be prepared.”

“He won’t have to be prepared,” Ed says. “We’re going to make sure it doesn’t get to that.”

“If you say so…” Alphonse replies, skeptical. “But remember what Winry said: If you care about someone, the best thing you can do for them is be honest.”

“Oh my _gooood.”_ Ed makes a face. “Winry’s not here. And I’m not lying. I’m just preventing a problem before there is one.”

The bridge isn’t far from the palace, which is, Ed assumes, why Scar picked the location. It’s nestled in the side of the mountains that protect the palace to the northeast, and strictly off limits during the night. They have to dodge a security patrol on the path down, but overall they follow the intermittent red or blue flashes and Ed’s gut.

A few huge trees mark the end of the path they had to traverse to get to the grotto, and there’s a car parked in the grass that wasn’t there before, sitting up against one of the trunks. Ed and Al nod at each other, and the unambiguous sound of kunai knives embedding into stone can be heard from around the corner of the palace wall.

There’s a tall trellis separating this side of the walls from the courtyard, but it’s destroyed in the middle—a gaping hole opens up to the courtyard through decaying, shriveled plants.

“Scar!” May calls out, running to him, Shao May peaking out her head from just under May’s shirt. The panda lets out a small sneeze, and tucks further away.

Scar is on the ground on one knee, hunched over, and Ed and Al hurry over to him as well. Ed spots the culprit fleeing beyond the trellis hole and he points with the full length of his arm. “Al, _now!_ ” he says.

Al claps his hands together, but when he moves to finish his performance by hitting the ground, he collapses instead, breath shallow. This day pushed him too far, and he feels _awful_ , a little dizzy, and hungry to top it off. He hasn’t eaten since before he fell asleep.

Ed lets out a noise of frustration. He knows what’s at stake. It’s not just about proving his point, and it’s not just about saving Greed.

It’s a matter of proving he’s still capable without his alchemy.

He breaks into a sprint after the figure, scrambling through the dying latticework.

“Brother!”

“Alphonse…” May starts, retrieving chalk from her person to draw a circle and pointed star for her alkahestry in light of Scar’s injury. “Hold him still, if you can.”

“This is really unnecessary,” Scar says. His voice has the faintest wheeze in it, but when he moves his hands from his chest, Al can see where a blade is lodged in his sternum.

Al shifts forward about a foot and puts one hand on Scar’s shoulder, the other on his arm. “That looks bad,” he says.

“I’m going to pull it out,” May tells him.

Scrunching up his nose, Scar moves a hand to the hilt. “I can do it.” He does, before she can protest.

“I wasn’t ready!” May says, and she quickly finishes the circle with her knives. Scar wheezes, but it’s just a breath this time, and the zing of blue light encloses the circle right before Scar breathes again, sounding much less strained.

He turns to Alphonse.

“I thought I told you two to stay _put,”_ Scar says.

“Well, it’s obvious you couldn’t handle it on your own.”

There’s only a grunt in return from Scar as May collects her kunai.

She furrows her brow at Al with unease. “And do you think your brother can?”

“Maybe not,” Al says. “But he’s learned when to pull back when he’s met his match.”

May and Scar share a twin look. It says they don’t believe him.

\--

“Hey! Get your ass back here and fight me like a man!” Ed taunts, pushing off the tunnel wall after the courtyard to give himself more momentum. He looks up above, trying to gauge if he can scale to the top of it and get the high ground, but without his alchemy, it’d eat up too much time.

The man throws a knife behind him—it’s meant for his leg, and Ed pulls his knees up high, vaulting over it.

“What’re you so _scared_ of??” Ed glances back once to see if he can find where it landed. “Do I look that threatening to you?”

He turns a sharp corner and Ed reaches out a hand for the wall, but is forced to a stop when he sees the culprit has stopped as well, and worse yet, is facing him.

He says something lowly—darkly—and it gives Ed pause.

“Sorry, I don’t speak Xingese,” Ed says. He notices that the section behind him opens up to the front courtyard, and Ed realizes he’s been given the advantage. Guards will be posted there for sure, and have probably already heard the commotion. Ed grins.

“I see,” the man says. His voice, at least when he speaks Amestrian, reminds him of Ling’s. Come to think of it, now that he can see him better up close, he looks a lot like him too.

His hair is parted to the side with wispy, straight bangs, his long tresses braided neatly over one shoulder. They’re about the same height, they have the same nose, and there’s something else about it too, Ed just can’t put his finger on.

Ed’s… not sure if that’s racist, but it does cross his mind.

No… No, he hasn’t thought that about anyone else he’s ran into. Probably not racist. Besides, Scar mentioned something about one of the royal children going missing. Maybe this is him. Ling’s half-brother.

“Van Hohenheim,” the man says. Ed jumps out of his skin, thought process dissolved, and he widens his stance.

“I’m sorry, _what?”_

“You look just like him.”

Ed grits his teeth together and steadies his gaze on the probably-Xingese-prince, fists clenching. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Edward counters.

The man smiles in the same smug way Ed had when they stopped running.

“Your body language says otherwise. So nice of you to run right into my path.” He takes a step backwards, but it seems purposeful. “Maybe you could be the key.”

Ed’s blood _boils_. “I’ve already had one lunatic try to use me as a ‘key’ for something. It didn’t really end well for him.”

“Is that so?” Another step.

Ed pushes off the ground to attack the man, and he’s caught off guard by the knife already in his hand. He uses his right arm to block the attack, naturally, and then—

He cries out in pain as the blade cuts through skin, drawing a line up along his ulna. Ed holds his sliced arm against his chest and focuses using his legs instead, kicking at and pushing the man back. Once he gets a blow in on the side of his face, and the man is gushing blood as well, though from his nose, Ed tries to side swipe him with his metal leg.

After another quick dodge on his part, the man returns his blade to his sheath and goes in to elbow Ed in the chest. Ed grabs his arm and twists, then manages with all his remaining strength to throw him.

Ling’s brother tucks and rolls, still hitting the ground poorly, but saves himself from a worse fall.

“Guards!” Ed hears him call from where he’s hunched pitifully on the white courtyard brick, and Ed scoffs, confused.

There’s already two of the palace staff running their way.

“Get him!” Ed demands, still cradling his arm against his core, but the guards don’t pursue the culprit. Instead, they come for _Ed._

Ed is gripped under his elbow on one side, but he’s persistent about keeping his right arm, the bloodied one, to himself.

“No—! No, _he’s_ the one who attacked _us!”_ They tug him towards the palace and Ed is lifted wholly off the ground, struggling to get free. “You’re making a mistake! That guy’s crazy!

“What the _hell_ are you doing?? I’m here as a guest to the Emperor! You can’t treat me like this! Just ask him yourself!”

Zai Ban watches from where he lies on the ground as Edward is taken away, dirtied and sopping wet, a nearly serene look on his face.

\--

“It wasn’t safe for you to drive the car over here,” Scar says, closing the door to the black car at the base of the mountain. It’s nudged up against a tree, and the weight of the three of them in it drags the car down just enough that the bark hooked on the front bumper is pried off.

The sound of the rain is a lot duller inside, but every once in a while a loud _thwap_ hits the roof from where water collects in the leaves above them and connects with the metal.

“Shao May was keeping an extra pair of eyes out for me,” May says. “Besides.” She climbs back into the back seat with Al and picks up a pillow from the floor. “I sat on your pillow.”

“You’ve never driven a car before,” he says plainly.

“Neither have you until we drove here to Hangzhou!”

“You guys…” Al murmurs. May looks over at Al and Scar glances at him in the rearview mirror. “I need to figure out where Ed went. And also sort out what’s going on.”

“Well, for one, you probably shouldn’t go back to the palace,” May tells him.

The car starts up as Scar puts the keys in the ignition.

“Wait— What? No; I’m not going with you guys.”

“But my family has a safe house in the city, and no one would think to target _there_.”

“Why not?”

“Because no one’s lived there in over twenty years. It’s kinda like—”

When the car backs up and over a few bumps in the grass, Al leans forward and grips the passenger side seat. “Stop! You’re not taking me to some safe house!” He makes a disgruntled noise when Scar ignores him and continues trying to get back on the road, so Al opens the back door and scrambles out of it. Scar presses on the breaks for his sake, and Al runs into the car door, holding onto it.

“We don’t have time for this,” Scar says.

“You don’t have time for anything!” Al counters from just outside. He tries to pop open his umbrella, but struggles with it. “Nothing is as time constraining as you make it sound. Careful planning and knowing your enemy will win against brute force any day.”

“That’s interesting, coming from a boy who used to be a living suit of armor.”

Al finally pries it open and shields himself with the umbrella’s panels, one hand on the doorframe.

“Yeah, and I had to learn how people could use that against me. I had to learn what my own weaknesses were before I could begin to plan for a fight. Everyone has advantages and disadvantages, and if you don’t know them, you’re just as good as dead.”

“…Knowledge is power…” Scar says thoughtfully.

Al inhales, relaxes and looks between the two of them as May breaks into a small smile. “Yeah.”

It’s clear that something has changed his mind, but it comes to no surprise to Al when Scar says, “My brother used to say that.”

A tiny muffled sneeze comes from May’s shirt, and May pulls back the piece at her shoulder, then looks up to Scar.

“Will you take her back to the house? I’ll go with Alphonse and escort him into the palace.”

She scoops the little panda bear into her hands and holds her out to Scar. A small frown tugs at his mouth, but he accepts Shao May with one open hand and places her on his shoulder. He looks forward through the windshield with a firm nod.

“Protect each other.”

After Scar makes it onto the road with little damage to the car, leaving the two of them there under the umbrella, Al puts an arm out to hold May close enough so she doesn’t get any more drenched than she already is.

“I could use something to eat. We should try to restore our energy, yeah?” Al says.

“What about Edward?”

“He couldn’t have gone far. But while we walk, I want you to tell me everything that happened.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm currently working on cosplays for ALA, so I might have to slow down chapters a bit this week! Probably only 2-3 chapters between now and Sunday the 13th.


	20. Chapter 20

It’s hard to focus on anything but getting Lan Fan back to the palace; Greed doesn’t say much to Ling on the way. They enter the healing ward, but the alkahestry experts seem much more concerned about him at first, and it takes some convincing to get them to focus their efforts on Lan Fan.

Luckily, Ling is there to speak for the both of them, and it makes smoothing things over a lot easier with access to fluent Xingese.

The bath Lan Fan is drawn is lukewarm, and the attendants undress her behind a sheet, but Ling insists on being by her side when they’re finished. She’s unconscious from the cold, and he feels responsible for it. He can tell Greed feels the same way.

Ling has one of her hands in his own, one of his legs drawn up to his chest where he sits against the tub. A healer approaches her and heats up the water a little more—they have to keep the pacing of the temperature slow, so her body doesn’t go further into shock.

About fifteen minutes into her bath, Lan Fan’s eyes flutter open, and an attendant gives her some more water, but it’s easier to feed to her when she’s coherent.

Ling straightens and searches her face.

“I’m here, Lan Fan. I’m here.”

She swallows, a crease in her brow that melts away at his voice. She manages a small, closed-mouth smile.

“Ling,” she whispers. He doesn’t even tease her for the lack of title in the name. He just gives her hand a squeeze.

The same attendant that helps Lan Fan with the water meets Ling’s eyes.

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful, your majesty, but— You should get some rest. She will recover, and when she has her strength returned, with food, water, and sleep, a servant will be sent to inform you.”

He looks down at her, and even though the color is returning to her cheeks, she can barely keep her eyes open. Not even enough to protest.

“Very well,” he says.

He barely makes it half way down the hall before he’s approached by a guard, donning a dark violet ensemble. Another problem, he can only assume. He just wants to check on Ed and Al, and it’s driving him mad that he hasn’t had the chance.

“What is it,” he deadpans, finally sounding just as tired as his body is.

The guard swallows, then kneels on one leg, bowing his head.

“I’m sorry, my liege. But there was an intruder in the prime courtyard. He was caught in a scuffle with Prince Diushi.”

Ling scratches his chin, trying to place a face for his brother. He’s not sure if he’s ever met him before, and therefore, doesn’t know how concerned he should be.

“What did the intruder look like?”

“He was an outsider. On the shorter side, with blond hair in a ponytail.”

Ling blinks at first. And then he laughs.

\--

 _“Hellooo!”_ Ed calls from behind bars as the dungeon patrols dismiss him entirely. “Why won’t any of you listen to me? I know the Emperor _personally!”_

He grips the metal bars with one hand. Though they gave him a cold compress and his wound isn’t too deep, it still hurts like hell, and it’s at the stage where it’s aching even over the sound of his thoughts.

“He’s going to be pretty pissed off when he realizes you threw me in here while I was injured!”

That still doesn’t get a reaction out of them, and he lets out a disgruntled, “ _Ugh,”_ before pulling away from the bars so he can pace. He holds the compress tight, squeezing and releasing pressure on the cut as the only means of dulling the pain. It’s a lot harder to ignore injuries without adrenaline or any forward-thinking goal.

There are footsteps from the staircase and Ed rolls his eyes, beginning to pace faster as he mumbles to himself about what he’d do if he still had access to his alchemy. He’s sure God is laughing somewhere in that other dimension, but there’s no way he’s going to be the butt end of his joke.

He feels so _stupid._ He used his right arm to defend himself because he’s so used to it being expendable, or at least _durable_. He wouldn’t go as far as to say he wishes things went back to the way they were, but he definitely _misses_ his automail arm in a way he never thought he would.

He slinks down to the floor, glowering at the one guard he can see from here.

“Can you at least tell me what time it is?” Ed has his head lolled back, but his tone is flat compared to how dramatic he looks. “I kind of lost my pocketwatch in Amestris, and I’m still pretty bitter about it.”

“Well, well, well,” Ling says, hands behind his back as he approaches Ed’s cell and comes into view. He’s at least had a change of clothes, though they’re a simple yellow shirt with clasps and dark brown pants. “Do you think we should let him out, Greed? Or is it best that he knows his place?”

Ed shoots up to his feet fast and bounds back over to the prison bars. “Ling?” he asks, heart pounding in his chest as he swells with a grin.

Ling laughs faintly under his breath. “It’s me,” he confirms. He nods to the guard nearest to him, and they’re at Ed’s cell soon enough, unlocking the door.

“Oh, Ed… Are you hurt?”

“It’s nothing,” Ed says. “What took you so long, you bastard?”

He sticks his tongue out at the guard and moves towards Ling to rest his head against Ling’s shoulder. Ling wraps his arms around Ed and sighs softly.

“We should get you cleaned up. I just left the healing ward. They can help you there.”

On the way back up the stairs, Edward makes cutting eye contact with everyone he saw on the way down, very much trying to make a point that he was _right_.

“So,” Ling begins, glancing at Ed and the blood that’s seeped through the sleeve of his tan coat, which is now pushed up to just above Edward’s elbow, a simple cold press on his forearm. “How did you end up in a scuffle with my brother?”

Brother, huh? “Hah! I _knew_ he looked familiar. But. First— Let’s talk about _you_. How did you—? What _happened?_ Are you okay? Is…” Ed’s voice gets softer with concern. “Is Greed okay?”

“He’s a bit shaken, but otherwise, yes.” Ling looks Ed’s way once more as they walk and studies him for long enough that Ed breaks eye contact and rubs the back of his neck bashfully. “I assure you, he’s fine. A… woman—an unknown woman—she broke into my bedroom and used some sort of alchemy to melt Greed’s shield.”

He takes control rather rapidly at the very mention. “It didn’t _melt,”_ Greed insists, flabbergasted. “It turned to smoke like— Like fucking magic or something.”

Ed’s hand returns to his arm to squeeze his gash, and he finds himself a little astonished as well, but not at the phenomenon he describes. “It’s not magic,” he says. “It’s science.”

“No, Ed— I mean, she managed to turn my _shield_ into smoke, like it just— It just evaporated into thin air!” He throws his hands up. “My perfect, reliable, ultimate shield. Like it was nothing!”

Ed can’t help but chuckle to himself. “It’s not infallible, Greed. Remember what I did to it?”

“Of course. But— But that was different. You just turned the, what—carbon, yeah?—into a different type of carbon.”

“From the sound of it, so did she.” Edward is still amused, but he nudges Greed’s shoulder with his own as they walk. “You really don’t know anything about your own body, do you? Carbon comes in a lot of forms. Take coal for example: an easy source of fuel because it gives off carbon dioxide when it’s burned, which traps heat, and makes it easier to give off electricity.

“Diamonds are just another form of carbon, like your shield. In theory, you could melt it, but it would take a tremendous amount of heat.”

Greed opens the door to the ward as Ed thoughtfully rests his hand on his chin, brow creased and puzzling it out. One of the alkahestry experts gasps at the dried blood on Ed’s hand and coat, and they help him remove it while Ed’s still turning gears in his mind.

“That would be upwards of at least five-hundred degrees Celsius? Maybe more? And it would require a _lot_ of oxygen. Diamonds don’t just burn on open flame, it takes precise circumstance.”

Ed is guided down into a chair and his cold press is removed to reveal his raw, bumpy skin, reddened from injury and the press. His skin is sliced in a clean, thin line, but it protrudes out a little and the man at his side cleans it with a damp towel. Ed doesn’t flinch.

“I mean, you’ve lived a really, _really_ long time. Antoine Lavoisier managed to burn a diamond in the late seventeen-hundreds, and he only lived for fifty years. He was also publicly executed by guillotine, though, and—”

Greed feels his head spinning. He reaches out for the nearest spare seat as Ed’s wound is cleaned in preparation for the alkahestry session.

‘Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?’ Greed asks Ling.

‘Not a clue.’

He relinquishes control of their body without another word and Ling is the one who manages to grab a chair. He drags it in front of him and straddles it so he can lean on the back as he listens to Ed ramble.

“Coal is what diamonds are before they’ve been in the ground for that long. It’s formed under an incredible amount of heat and pressure, and it’s the hardest substance on earth! I just— It baffles me that you didn’t know any of this, when—”

Ling nods. “Mm-hm,” he voices, a long smile across his face.

Ed stops when the chalk circle is finished at his feet, and he looks down and around at it, then back to Ling. He hums under his breath, suspicious.

“He checked out, didn’t he?” Edward guesses.

“About a minute ago.”

There’s a flash of blue light and Ed’s gash mends itself, though it still looks a little tender. The healer says something Ed doesn’t understand, so he looks to Ling for a translation.

“He says, due to the fact this wasn’t a fresh wound, it may leave a faint scar. It’s not a guarantee, though.”

With a cheeky smirk, Ed pokes at it, then shakes his arm and wrist out. “I’m covered in scars. What’s one more, really?”

“I guess that’s one way to look at it,” Ling replies.

“Hey…” He realizes something after saying that, and turns to the healer, to which he thanks her; in Xingese, no less. No one corrects him, and Ling even smiles.

“What is it?” Ling says, taking him by the arm and leading him out as the attendants bow their heads to their Emperor.

“I, ah… I guess I was wondering if you… had the chance to talk to Greed?”

Ling stops about ten feet down the hall and turns to him. “We spoke,” he confirms. “Well.” Ling tilts his head to the side, glancing up and away. “We argued, to put it more accurately.”

It gives Edward pause, and he shifts his weight to his other foot, rubbing at the freshly healed wound, but more for comfort now than out of necessity.

“Oh,” Ed says, holding a breath high in his chest that he can feel between his ribcage.

Ling’s voice takes on a cheery lilt and he smiles with his eyes, resting his hands on his own elbows. “Not to worry! We sorted it all out. I think he’ll be on his best behavior now. At least I hope.”

The heavy swallow Ed forces down just makes his breath feel even more shallow.

“Good. I should— I should find Al.”

“Al…? Don’t tell me he tried to pick a fight with _another_ of my siblings.”

“No, not at all. He’s in good hands right now. I just need to make sure he gets back to bed okay.” Ed puts a hand on Ling’s shoulder before he has to make his getaway, but mostly avoids eye contact. “I’m glad you’re feeling like yourself again.”

“Thanks, Ed.”

Ed can see where Ling is trying to discern what to make of this, but ultimately can’t decide. He can see his scrutiny out of the corner of his eye, but then Ed takes off, trying to put as much purpose into his steps as possible.

“Tell me about your impromptu boxing match later, ‘kay?”

Ed just waves in response. And when he’s disappeared into the great hall, Ling rubs one eye with the palm of his hand.

‘You know that was probably about me, right?’ Greed says.

‘Yes, I know. But now is not the time to discuss it. And if it comes up later, this will make it easier to play ignorant.’

Greed sighs. ‘I really hate when you do that.’

‘Do what?’

‘Ling… Come on.’

‘Patience, Greed.’

“Yao Ling.” That deep, hardened voice raises the skin on the back of Ling’s neck. Ling stands up straighter, one eye opening into a distrustful narrowed glare, but he knows he has no weapons on him.

Guowei’s posturing, however, doesn’t look aggressive, nor does he look like he has a weapon on his person either. He’s larger than Ling—more square, with a square jaw—but he’s not looming like he was when he came to execute Ling in his room all those weeks ago.

‘What is he doing here?’ Ling demands. ‘You didn’t think to maybe kick him out when you took the throne?’

‘I didn’t _think_ about him at all _,’_ Greed says. ‘He didn’t challenge me and he wasn’t in the room when the council decided I was—‘

“Do you have nothing to say for yourself?” Guowei asks, jaw shifting from side to side like he’s trying to hold himself back.

“What do you want?”

“I only want to know why. _Why_ you have betrayed us all. _Why…_ you only bring more _pain_ to our country and _destroy_ our traditions.”

Guowei circles around him until he’s standing at Ling’s side, but Ling doesn’t shift to face him. He has all the information he needs with the Dragon’s Pulse.

“I’ve done no such thing.” And Ling can recall enough of Greed’s memories to know it’s the truth. Greed has done nothing but try to help, especially the clans who are struggling the most.

“You killed,” Guowei says lowly. “ _Ba_ of the Jin clan. _Wei_ of the Zhenyun clan. Moruo Yan. Haoran Meng. Xun Ouyang. Zai Sun. Hongdao Yue. Our brothers and sisters. You killed them all.” Ling’s jaw slackens in shock of the accusation, but Guowei continues. “And now, when an outsider attacks another of royal blood, you reward him, and let him go with not even a slap on his hand.”

‘Did he say we killed people?’ Greed clarifies, missing some of the Xingese words, but confused by the ones he thinks he knows.

“I can assure you I did _not_ do these things.” Ling’s stance widens, but it’s a defense mechanism that comes from Guowei’s words, rather than his actions. “I have never killed anyone who did not attack me first.”

“I don’t care how much you lie to me.” Guowei comes closer, slowly, eyes leveled on Ling’s face as he keeps his arms firmly at his sides, and he whispers slowly: “Zai Ban told me everything.”

\--

Ed hears shifting and the sound of low voices from the guest bedroom he’s sharing with Al. Edward listens in before opening the door, but he would recognize his brother’s voice anywhere.

He opens it to a mess of papers on the floor, where May is drawing transmutation circles, as well as Xingese diagrams.

She only turns her head to look at Ed once before arcing a long line on the paper with a pen. “It looked more like this, actually. And there was a sun symbol. I think Zai Ban had a tattoo of it on the back of his neck. That, or it looked very similar.”

“And you’re sure this woman was there?” Al asks.

Ed takes it all in. The window is wide open. Seaweed, the cat, is sitting on a piece of stray paper not far from Al, in that way cats do when there’s any loose foreign object on the ground. Part of the wall from outside is jutting into the window’s structure (which is probably why it’s completely ajar).

And to top it all off, Al is sitting cross-legged on the floor with a bowl of noodles in his lap.

“What are you two doing?”

“Reconnaissance,” Al says, tapping his temple with one finger.

“Oh…kay.” When Ed closes the door behind him, he does it slowly. “What’s with the window?”

Al looks at it as if he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, then clicks his tongue. “My… alchemy gets a little here or there when I’m tired?”

“Did you catch that blood-thirsty menace or not?” May asks.

Ed makes a face at her. “You mean your half-brother? …No.” He crosses to the bed and pries off his shoes; the first makes a _shlosh_ noise when he does, and he lets out an, _“Eugh.”_

“Figures,” May says, returning to her symbol-sketching.

“Hey! What do you mean by _that?!”_

“If he got the best of Scar, there’s no way you could take him on your own.”

“What!? You hold that wanted _criminal_ to higher standards than _me?_ I’m a public servant, you little—”

“ _Guys,_ ” Al presses, putting a hand in the air before lowering it. “Volume. We’re trying to be discreet here.”

Ed toes off the other shoe and falls back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

“I’m pretty sure I lost all semblance of discretion the second I got thrown in the royal dungeon. That guy’s going to be a tough nut to crack, especially now that Ling knows I’m out to get him.”

“You got thrown in the— Wait— _Ling?”_ Al says.

Ed chuckles, and he can’t stop himself from smiling openly. It shines through in his tone. “The one and only. From the sound of it, adrenaline or panic woke him up. I _told_ Greed it had to be something like that.”

May collects the papers when she’s finished and pushes them over to Al. “That’s all of them,” she says. “They’re labelled and I added a few notes, but… sorry if I spelled some of your words wrong.”

“That’s okay. I really appreciate it.”

Out of curiosity, Ed sits up, but just on his elbows, as May pulls back on her overcoat (she drowns in it, it’s so big, and Ed wonders if it even belongs to her at all).

“I should get back to Shao May. It’s been a while since she’s had a cold. But we’ll meet you in the grotto, okay?”

Al nods and May scratches behind Seaweed’s ear before she climbs up into the window sill. “Bye, Edward! Try not to get thrown in prison again!”

Ed drops his head backwards dramatically, letting out a short noise of annoyance. “Great, now she’s never going to let that go,” he mumbles.

Getting up off the floor, bowl of noodles in hand, Alphonse comes to sit on the bed beside his brother.

“I guess it’s a good thing we got that nap, isn’t it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't stop myself from posting this today, so I'll likely post the next chapter on Wed and then there won't be another until after the con (Tue probably). Thank you guys!!


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said Wednesday, but I literally can't help myself, it's ridiculous. I do feel bad making everyone go a whole week without a chapter, but I can't stop myself from posting this Right! Now! I'd also like to thank TheCrazyMasterless and the anon Nicole (whoever you are?) because your comments really got me through feeling kind of in the dumps about my work. I really appreciate it and if you want to contact me, you can at @pulseandhaze on instagram !

“May told me that Seaweed is a breed called a Dragon Li. She thinks she’s a purebred!”

“Great,” Ed says in a way that makes it clear he doesn’t think it’s great. “She’s a cat expert. Now you two can fawn over kittens together.”

“I don’t know if she’s an expert, but she knows a few breeds on sight. She did say that Dragon Lis aren’t too prevalent; they’re a sign of status and they’re bred from mountain cats.”

“Al. The papers.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Alphonse places his bowl on his bedside table and collects the sheets May was sketching on before sitting back on the bed beside Ed.

“This symbol here,” he says, showing Ed: The sketch is a sun symbol with rays on one half, but missing them on the other. There’s a line down the middle of the sun, and the right side, which has no rays, is colored in with pen. “It’s a derivative of ying and yang symbolism, but, obviously, stemming from sun imagery. It’s technically occult… It came about around the same time as alkahestry, supposedly in opposition to it. It’s thought to have Xerxesian origins… Which May says she thought was pretty stupid until she met us.”

Al laughs, but Ed doesn’t see what’s so funny.

“So, it’s a cult that hates alkahestry. Pretty ironic they’re using sun imagery for that.”

“Why?” Al asks.

“Think back to Liore. The _‘Sun God Leto.’_ Sure, it was all bullshit, but… I realized a few weeks back that it was just a stand-in for Father himself. That vain bastard made an entire cult about himself.”

“And you think this is the same thing?”

“Well…” Ed sits up properly, folding his legs under him. “I don’t know for sure, but I doubt it. That Homunculus didn’t even know alkahestry existed, let alone how to control it. It wouldn’t make sense for him to make a cult about something he didn’t know existed.”

“That makes sense,” Al agrees. “But why would someone be a part of a cult in opposition to alkahestry? Its main function is for healing.”

“Some people just want to watch the world burn.”

\--

Al falls asleep just before 4am, but Ed doesn’t get to sleep until about an hour after that. He’s certainly tired, but he’s also paranoid and on high alert.

Al had informed him that Scar and May wanted to meet at the grotto in the morning so they can relocate to the safe house. There’s plenty more to discuss beyond obscure occult symbolism and someone trying to use a spliced version of alkahestry and alchemy.

They decide, for the sake of discretion, to try to sneak out over the wall in the gardens, if they can manage it.

“I see two guards on the left,” Ed murmurs to Alphonse, hoisting his backpack up a little higher. It’s possible they can wait it out, but the second plan would be to use the front entrance and just play it off if need be.

“Hey! Ed!”

Ed and Al both freeze and turn slowly as Greed approaches them, lightly jogging to close the distance quickly.

“How’re you feeling?” He looks between them. “What’re you two up to?”

“We were… actually…”

“I was just telling brother that we should check out some tourist spots,” Al recovers. “We _are_ tourists, after all. It’d be nice to relax.”

“Sure,” Greed says, smiling. “Sounds like a plan. But, uh. Do you think I could borrow your brother for a little while? I’m not one to interrupt a good time, but…”

“Don’t you have, y’know, Kingly things to do?” Ed asks.

“I sure do. Which is why I wanted to grab you now. It’s technically my lunch break, but Ling eats so fast that I probably don’t need as much time as I get for it.” He chuckles, and then his expression slowly sinks. “Or… I— If you don’t want to talk to me. I. I get that. You can talk to him instead, if you’d like.”

“What?” Ed completely loses all rationality to make way for guilt. “I like talking to you,” he says. He stares for a second, not sure what to say, then he pulls his bag off his shoulder. “Here. Al, take this. I’ll just be a minute, okay?”

Al looks down at it, then up at Greed, who puts his fists on his hips proudly, rejuvenated. “Okay…” Al says. He hooks the straps over his arms. “I’ll wait for you in the atrium, but if you’re not there in ten minutes, I’m leaving without you. I don’t want to miss _the tour_.”

Edward gives a firm nod, but he looks like he’s in a better mood too.

“Sorry about last night,” Greed says when Al heads off. “Ling held a meeting this morning to make it much clearer to the staff that you’re _guests_ and should be treated with respect, _not_ arrested. I tried to tell them that myself, but there’s only so much I can do when I don’t speak the native tongue fluently.” His eyes light up and he reaches out to put a hand on Ed’s upper arm. “Oh—oh, gimme a second.”

Greed strolls over to the nearest attendant and leans in close. Ed can’t hear what Greed says to her, and he thinks that it might even be _Ling_ who says it, but either way, she leaves with a deep bow and exits into the palace the same way Al had.

“Look,” Ed starts. “The important part is that you broke me out. Don’t sweat it. I was only there for about fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“Good. Very good.” Then he mumbles, “That does make me feel better.” Greed nods down a path that leads to the gazebo, then extends an arm as if to say, ‘after you.’ “Take a walk with me.”

The palace gardens are beautiful, and they’re dotted with flora Edward has never seen in his life. It’s so green, with trees that look like dripping moss more than leaves, and stones of granite or marble. There are bushes with little berries nestled into mauve fronds, white stone steps accented with gold, and a small waterfall that feeds into a pond with water so clear Ed can see all the tiny stones at the bottom.

The fish in the pond are white, yellow, and red, and they’re _fast,_ so much so that it draws his attention a few times when they swim by.

“I wanted to make sure we were alright,” Greed says. Ed pulls his gaze away from the colorful fish to look at him, but Greed is staring straight ahead. “You and I.”

“Yeah,” Ed tells him. “Why wouldn’t we be? If this is about—”

“I know I messed up.”

“No… Greed— It’s not that simple.” Ed sighs. He knew this conversation might come about at some point, but he wasn’t expecting it now, and it’s hard to discern what he should or shouldn’t say when he knows Ling is present. “I know you can be impulsive.” Greed scoffs a laugh. “But so can I. I’m not against acting on impulse. I… I actually kind of prefer it that way.”

This is so _embarrassing,_ and Ed brings a hand to his mouth, scratching just under his bottom lip, but he feels like he has to explain himself or he’s bound to make it worse. “Greed… You’re… Or, Ling— Or— _whatever_ — You’re… an Emperor. You’re the leader of a country. And also, you’re not exactly speaking for yourself when you do things. Y’know?”

They cross the little bridge that stretches over the pond and Greed takes the steps to the gazebo one ahead of Edward.

“It’s not me, it’s you?” Greed can’t help but joke.

“No, actually,” Ed says airily. “It’s, heh… definitely _you…”_

Greed takes a seat at the bench housed under the roof, swiping the garments of his royal attire to one side underneath him. Ed sits beside him, resting one of his feet up on the knee of his other leg.

“Your hair, like this, it’s…” Ed snickers, hand still at his mouth. “I don’t like it.”

Greed frowns, remembering how much effort it takes to get it all pulled back into a neat bun like that. “Well, you’re gonna have to get used to it. It’s traditional.”

There’s a bit of a switch in Greed’s facial expression and it only takes Ling speaking for Ed to realize what happened.

“Actually,” Ling says. “I can take it down, if you’d like.”

Ed can feel the heat rise to his face immediately. He knew logically Ling had been listening, but having it shown so forthrightly is a different thing entirely.

Ling struggles with the hairpin and tied pieces for just long enough that Ed reaches out. “Let me do that,” Edward says. His fingers hold the majority of the strands garnered at the crown of his head, then pull out the pin before removing the tie that holds the rest in place.

Ling’s hair descends around his neck and shoulders, and his bangs, which normally stick out regardless, decide to make even more of a scene, some of them reaching straight up to the sky. Ed can’t help himself from laughing as he tames the front by brushing it with his fingers.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Ling says, but he’s on the edge of a smile.

“I’m laughing _with_ you,” Ed teases.

When he’s finished, his hand traces the natural curve of Ling’s hairline, then down his cheek slowly, until his hand rests on Ling’s jaw. When he thinks better of it, Ed pulls away quickly, like he’s been burned.

“Sorry,” he mutters, curled fists moving to his lap. He knows how badly he must be showing his self-consciousness across his cheeks—he knows how red his face can get when he feels uncomfortable or awkward, and it’s overwhelming, knowing that he can’t help himself.

But Ling’s voice is light as a feather. “For what?”

“Nothing. I’m just— I’m being stupid.

“This garden is— it’s breathtaking… I’m really glad I got to see it. I’ve never seen anything like it back in Amestris and,” Ed’s voice starts to pick up in speed, “there’s just so much culture here that I was completely blind to before. It’s strange to think about how _isolated_ Amestris kept itself, but I guess that was the point, right?”

“Ed—”

“We were supposed to cut ourselves off from the world, and the military made sure of that, and now I’m learning just how much I missed out on. Like, take alkahestry for example. It’s really not—”

_“Ed.”_

He turns back to look at Ling, and Ed rocks forward a little to calm himself down.

“Yeah? What?”

“You’re rambling.”

Ling reaches out for him, slowly, calculated. He lets his fingers trail down Ed’s forearm and over the palm of his hand, not quite interlacing his fingers with Edward’s, but instead letting the pads of his fingertips sit in the curve of Ed’s fingers, and he can _feel_ Ed freeze, like a deer in headlights.

Quietly, and just above a whisper, Ling chooses his words carefully.

“I feel like you have this… misconstrued idea… of the dichotomy between Greed and I.” He leans forward a bit more so he can try to get Ed to look at him, but it’s clear Ed doesn’t want to, or can’t bring himself to. “There’s not a single thing he’s ever wanted—and I don’t mean small, fleeting things, but—there’s not a single thing he’s ever truly, _deeply_ wanted, that _I_ did not want as well.”

There’s this vibrant, belligerent, _living_ energy that builds up in Ed’s stomach and raises to his chest—a myriad of emotions he can’t name, especially not like _this_ —and everything he wants to say stops in a lump in his throat. It builds and builds until he can’t take it anymore. He jerks upwards and stands, swaying.

“Hah,” Ed breathes, covering his entire face with one hand. He doesn’t think he feels sick, but with no where for his emotions to go, and the butterflies in his stomach, it almost feels like the same thing.

He takes slow steps away to a pillar wrapped in vines and only looks up when he sees movement by the koi pond bridge. Ed peers at the guard between two of his fingers, and he can tell Ling sees her too as she hurriedly approaches.

“Your Imperial Majesty,” the guard says, a bit out of breath. She bows before the steps to the gazebo. Ling rises and stands at the top as Ed thuds his head unceremoniously against one of the gazebo’s pillars. “The captain of the guard has awoken. I was told to ask you to come quickly.”

Ling takes in a sharp breath. “Lan Fan,” he says; it gets Ed’s attention.

“What?” he says airily, his embarrassment curbed for now. “Oh… yeah… Where is she?”

He looks around like he’s trying to spot her, but Ling grabs him by the wrist and tugs him down the stairs. “I’ll explain on the way.”

He does. He tells Edward about the night before, how he’d awoken in a shock after showing up in the Portal of Truth. Ed listens intently, both intrigued by Ling’s story and concerned for him. Concerned for what he may have initiated by joining himself to the philosopher’s stone.

“Lan Fan pursued the intruder after that. I looked for her for a while before my argument with Greed, and when we found her, she was cold as ice. She didn’t even say anything, she just gave me—well… it’s not important—but I had to bring her back to the palace immediately.”

Ling’s robes trail behind him dramatically as they make it to the wing with the healing ward, and Ed has to jog every once in a while to keep up with Ling’s power walk. “She passed out in my arms,” Ling says. “She’s been sleeping ever since.”

“But… she’s stable?”

Ling is about to open the door before it’s opened for him, and the healer stands in the way.

The man looks between Ling and Edward before speaking. It’s in Amestrian. “Don’t alarm her,” he says. “We had to remove her metal arm.”

“ _What?”_ Ling demands. He pushes passed the man and Ed gives him a sheepish look as he follows.

Pulling back the curtain raises protests from two of the women in the room, and Ed makes a gagged noise of surprise—

Lan Fan is curled up on the floor in the corner with only undergarments on her bottom half, nearly nude, her automail arm missing—dried blood where it had been connected. Her face is burrowed into her elbow, but the attendants keep their distance, almost as if they’re afraid.

Ed covers his eyes and swivels away, flushing just as badly as at the gazebo. He wanders back to the center of the room, then puts his hands behind his head, still turned away from where he knows Ling and Lan Fan are.

“Would you like some water?” the man from the door asks Ed.

Ed shakes his head. “I’m— I’m good. Thanks.”

Finally, he notices it: Lan Fan’s arm, on a table up against the wall, so devoid of heat that it’s hazing with cold, chilled so deeply even frost is visible at the joints and the fingers.

Ling crouches beside Lan Fan, dread gnawing at him.

She starts at his touch, but when Lan Fan realizes it’s him, her aggression subsides. “Master Ling— They— They made me so _useless_ , I couldn’t— I tried to— I-I didn’t have a _choice_ —”

“I know,” he says to her, voice gentle as he reaches out and brushes her hair from her face. “Now, we need to keep you warm.” Ling pulls back just long enough to shrug off his outer robe and covers her with it, deep mauve silk tumbling over her bare chest and knees all the way to the floor. “Can you put this on for me?”

Her gaze shoots behind him to one of the attendants, but she nods quickly, following orders.

“Take your time, collect your thoughts, and then I want you to tell me what happened, okay?”

She only nods again, shaking (from stress now, rather than the cold), holding his robe across herself after tucking her arm inside one of the sleeves.

“I— The woman. Naraka.” She can barely manage above a whisper. “I managed to attack her, and she retaliated. She didn’t do anything I expected. She grabbed my wrist, and then a spike of pain went up to my shoulder, and I couldn’t move my automail for— For a while. I was going to make a run for it, but she didn’t come after me, she just ran off.

“And—And when I woke up, I was so _cold_. My arm started to burn so badly, and I couldn’t move it… I remember screaming, and… And then nothing… And then when I woke up again, they were trying to get it off of me.”

“Lan Fan…” Ling rests his hand against the junction of her shoulder and neck just before where her arm is missing, avoiding the red splotchy sections of her skin. “We’re going to catch her. I assure you.”

She closes her eyes tightly for a moment, then tries to force herself to relax. When she looks into his eyes again, she’s searching for something.

“Greed,” she says. “Is he there?”

Ling gives no resistance when he takes over. “Yeah, I’m here,” Greed says. He slides his arm under Lan Fan’s and helps her to her feet on her right side.

“If it wasn’t for you,” Lan Fan mutters. “Master Ling would be dead.” She leans her forehead against his shoulder. “Thank you.”

He doesn’t know how to respond to that, so Greed stares at the top of Lan Fan’s head for a long moment, then gestures to one of the attendants. “What are you waiting for? Get her something to wear.”

“Ling,” Ed calls over the curtain, and Ling throws the curtain back just enough to slip out. Ed’s leaning over the disconnected arm, and Ling frowns when he sees it. It takes months and months, even years, to recover from the surgery that connects the automail to a person’s nerves, and now Lan Fan will be forced to restart the process all over again.

“Look at this,” Ed says. When Ling reaches out to touch it, Ed stops him and grabs his wrist. “You might not want to do that.”

Where the metal is frosting over the most is slightly yellow in color, and Ling makes a face as he studies it. “Is that rust?” he asks.

“No. Lan Fan’s arm was made the same way my new one was, before it was destroyed. It has an outer layer of chrome—about seventeen percent, if I recall correctly. Chrome doesn’t rust. It’s actually a big reason Winry switched over, other than the fact it’s more durable in the cold.”

“Then… what is it?”

“I don’t know,” Ed admits. “But it’s clearly just as cold as liquid nitrogen, so it’s a good thing they got it off her. Who knows what internal damage that could do to her nervous system.”

Ling is still _angry_ , but he feels a little more at peace knowing they made a decision without his or Lan Fan’s approval if it protected her from more pain. He has a hard frown on his face.

“Is there any way we can figure out what it is?”

Ed nods, leaning on the table with his elbows to squint at it. He can feel the cold mist on his face when he gets too close.

“Yeah,” Ed says dreamily, ever-enticed by the unknown. “We can just ask Al to break it down by—”

He stands up straighter, gripping the edge of the table. “Shit,” he says. Ed makes quick work over to the door, pulling it open as Ling and two of the healers watch him. “I’m sorry. I have to go. I promise we’ll figure it out as soon as possible!”

Ling frowns as Ed slips past the attendant from the garden who Ling had previously sent away. She has a bag in her hands, watches Ed leave, and approaches Ling with it. It’s exactly the same time Lan Fan comes out from behind the curtain, donning new clothes.

“What’s that…?” Lan Fan asks as Ling takes the bag. It’s a good distraction from looking at her arm laying haplessly on the table.

With a soft sigh, Ling peers down into it. A comb, a bottle of cologne, and a bag of candies are inside, nicely stacked next to each other and guarded at the sides with white tissue paper.


	22. Chapter 22

Edward does a little spin in the atrium, twisting on the toe of his foot as he looks around for Al in a stunted panic. He was so _sure_ he could make it on time. That Al wouldn’t be this strict about how long he would wait, or that he wouldn’t be so foolish as to go alone to meet Scar.

He can feel a headache coming on—the kind that comes about from spikes of stress and pressure—and he has to press his palms into both sides of his temple in hopes of relieving it. He strides with an energized intent over to the front hall so he can see if he can spot Alphonse leaving.

“…Sir?” an attendant asks him, and while the man looks somewhat skittish, he’s at least bold enough to get Ed’s attention.

“Have you seen my brother?” Ed asks immediately, hands still at his head.

“Oh, ahh. What… what does he looks like?”

Ed slouches immensely, unimpressed. “Seriousl—” Ed scoffs mid-word. “He’s a little taller than me—but not by _much_ —same blond hair… Doesn’t really look like he’s from around here.”

It seems to dawn on the man, who nods. “Right. Yes, he was here. He was sitting on that bench.” The attendant points over to the east wall, but nothing remains there, and Ed lets out a noise of frustration.

“That’s great, but where did he _go?”_

A deeper, more throaty voice comes from Ed’s left, and it raises a feeling within him that cannot be put into words. He puts up a front, scrunching his nose up at the sound as the new presence speaks.

“I might have an idea where he is,” Guowei says slowly, arms folded over his chest intimidatingly.

Ed might not be the inconsequential height of four-eleven like he was just over a year ago, but he’s still only around five-three if he had to guess, and next to _this_ burly asshole, he feels like he’s standing next to Major Armstrong.

Alright: maybe it’s not _that_ bad. Armstrong is more of a beast than a man in the big scheme of things.

“And who the hell are you?” Edward asks.

It seems the attendant knows when to pull back, because he takes a few steps away the moment the two of them begin to interact and then tries to return to his duties to avoid conflict.

“It’s fitting your Emperor hasn’t told you about me. I’ll have to introduce myself. I’m Huo Guowei, his eldest brother.”

“Yeah, well, he has a lot of siblings. Can’t blame a guy for forgetting one or two of ‘em.”

Ed’s eyes are already narrowed, but he scrutinizes him, taking him in. Unlike Zai Ban, this guy doesn’t look anything like Ling as far as Ed is concerned. But he’s wearing clothes a lot more similar to the ones Ling wears than anyone else in this palace, and he looks just as well put together as you’d expect a prince to look.

“He has not forgotten me,” Guowei says. “How could he forget, when I know the truth about what he has done? When I know what kind of person—”

“ _Shut up,”_ Ed says firmly. “Threatening my brother or my friends isn’t a great first impression. Just tell me where he is before I _make_ you.”

“Those are bold words coming from an outsider.”

“I’ve heard Ling say bolder while he was in my country. And he didn’t exactly have the leader of said country on his side.”

“So you _are_ working for him,” Guowei presses, leaning his head back just a little, staring Ed down even after Ed takes a step closer.

Ed’s expression is made up of all angles, and he can feel his headache in the back of his eyes, throbbing without end. “I’m losing my patience, and I didn’t have a lot of it to begin with. I’m _not_ going to ask again.”

Guowei doesn’t speak at first. There’s a moment of silence that brings the pounding in Ed’s mind further forward still, and then Guowei breathes a scoff, shaking his head. “He’s still on the palace grounds. Somewhere you won’t be able to locate on your own. That much I can assure you. But I’m not sure how much longer he’ll be _alive_. Zai Ban works quickly.”

Ed wastes no more time. He lunges forward and forcefully shoves Guowei back, grip tight on both of his upper arms, until he’s thudding the larger man’s shoulder blades against the off-white wall. Something in the stone makes a crack, and a grinding sound, but neither of them pay it any mind.

Guowei simply seems surprised—not that he wasn’t expecting Ed to advance, but that Ed is even capable in doing so.

“I _told_ you, I wasn’t going to ask again.” Ed’s gaze is a pair of slits, fire ignited within them. “Where. Is. My brother.”

There’s nothing worse in Ed’s eyes than when someone dangles information just in front of his nose. He’s already at his wits’ end coping with the loss of his alchemy, and it makes things no better knowing that the reason this is even happening is because he didn’t have it available to him when he was pursuing that other princely moron.

“Answer me! You’re going to admit so easily that it was your brother who took mine?” Ed demands when Guowei only sneers at him from up against the wall. “You’re going to pretend to have the upper hand? If anything happens to him—if he so much as plucks a _hair_ from my brother’s head—I will _end_ you. I’ll end both of you.”

Edward pulls his arms forward about an inch and then shoves him again, jostling him. “Do you fucking _hear_ me?”

Guowei glances up, behind Ed, and then he nods in that direction. When Ed looks behind him, he doesn’t even feel the man break free beneath his hands, but he sees several of the palace guard with swords or spears drawn, surrounding them.

“I think you may underestimate the power I hold here, even in light of your Emperor’s reign,” Guowei says lowly, craning his neck to get lower, closer to Ed’s ear. He still doesn’t struggle. “Did you know… Yao Ling didn’t speak a word of Xingese when he was first appointed. Some of the council thought him an idiot. Some of them thought he was intentionally being disrespectful.

“Do you think a man like _that_ could rise to power?”

Ed turns back to look at him, eyes wide.

“The only reason your Emperor is on the throne is because _I_ willed it.

“The only reason he has his place, and the only reason you’re not behind bars, is because _I_ willed it.

“ _I’m_ the one who sent a guard to fetch him when you were imprisoned, to see how he would respond. And he did not disappoint.”

When Edward shifts onto the heel of his foot, backing away to hang his head with this newfound realization, Guowei stays in his place to watch him carefully.

“Time might be short for you,” he tells Ed. “But don’t think for a second that monster cares for your wellbeing. Things aren’t always what they seem.”

Ed can practically feel the guards around them closing in, so when he begins to make a run for it, and they part like a sea to let him pass, he inhales a sharp breath, and he knows it’s likely Guowei’s doing that Ed hasn’t been restrained.

He runs in the exact way he came, just as frenzied, and twice as shaken. He needs to hear it from Ling, or from Greed, that they have absolute control. That Guowei is lying. He needs a map of the palace, with every possible secret room or chamber. He needs every single available staff member in this place searching for his brother until he’s found.

His back aches, his head is pounding, and he pushes himself even further when his legs feel like they just can’t keep up with what he’s demanding of them.

A part of him doesn’t think he’ll be able to find Ling in time, but the universe gives him this one small grace, and he crashes right into him while rounding the corridor on the way back to the healing ward.

“Ed??” Greed asks, grappling him just above the elbows as Ed breathes heavily in his grasp. “Did you forget something in the— Whoa—”

He can practically smell the stress and fear circling him. “What happened? You need me to kick someone’s ass?”

Ed is trembling, and it’s an accumulation of everything he’s faced internally in the past month coming to the surface, but he tries— he tries so hard to remain calm.

“Alphonse… Al… It’s… its’ all my fault. We _had_ that guy, and he attacked Scar, and Scar knows, he _knows_ something’s amiss, and I should’ve just _told_ you—”

“Scar…?” It’s a question for both Ed and Ling, but Ling is just as confused and can offer nothing more than a shrug.

“And Al— Al tried to catch him last night, but when he was going to, he fell, and he’s… he’s too _weak_ to use alchemy all the time. I shouldn’t have brought him here while he was like this. I was risking his life having him cross that desert, and— And I relied on him to use his alchemy to catch him when I shouldn’t have. I keep relying on him— But I’m… _I’m_ the big brother. _Me_.”

Greed hauls Ed up a little straighter. Edward’s weight is pulling them both down just enough that Greed can feel himself sliding, and he grips Ed with a pressure that’s meant to be grounding.

“Slow _down_. What do you mean you relied on him? Why didn’t you just use your own—”

 _‘Greed,’_ Ling chides, but he catches it just a second too late.

Edward meets Greed’s eyes, and they’re wide like a doe’s, glossed over with tears in a vulnerable way that Greed has never seen from him before, and when Greed’s mouth opens slowly in fear, Ling knows exactly what he’s planning.

‘Oh, _no,_ you don’t.’

“Why didn’t I… just use my own… alchemy…?” Ed says finally, emphasizing every word. “Why didn’t I just— gee, I don’t know. That’s a _great_ idea. Why didn’t— why didn’t _I_ think of it?”

Greed tries with all of his power to recede to the back of their collective mind. To let Ling handle this. To tuck himself away until it’s all over. But Ling refuses, and he’s trapped staring at Ed’s betrayed expression, manic in a completely different way now.

“If I still had access to my alchemy, I’d have rearranged this entire building by now! But no, no, this wouldn’t even be a problem, because I would’ve caught your _insane_ fucking half-brother, and we’d be interrogating him already. What does he even _want_ with Al??”

He pushes out of Greed’s grasp and begins to pace.

“Ed— Hey, wait, that’s— That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s not?” Ed whips his head to look at him, throwing his arms up behind his head. “What _did_ you mean, then? Because you’re right! I’m useless without it. Everything I’ve ever learned is completely _useless_ without alchemy. I can’t— I can’t tell _Al_ that. How could he possibly understand what I mean? How could he interpret that to mean anything other than regret for what I’ve done?”

Greed swallows hard, embodying the form of an oversized mouse. “You don’t… regret it?”

“ _No!_ Of _course_ not! Regret implies that if I could go back, I wouldn’t do the exact same thing. Because I would! I would do the same thing if you put me in that scenario a hundred times over! But that doesn’t mean— That doesn’t mean,” and his voice cracks as he speeds up his pacing, Greed staring at him with wide eyes. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t _suck_. That doesn’t mean I don’t wish there was a solution to this, or an end, or an out. Anything. Anything…”

He slows to a stop, and stares at the floor, letting himself cry while his face is mostly obscured from Greed.

“I have… I have to find him,” Ed whispers. “I have to do something… I have to…”

It looks like he’s given up his fight and succumbed to the fear, and Greed can do nothing but watch, feeling just as useless. He can’t understand what Ed is trying to say anymore, as he mumbles to himself. It makes Greed ache, not just in his chest, but all over.

It feels like grief, and pain, and every negative emotion he’s ever felt in his life, and he just wants it to go away.

‘Please,’ Greed begs, just a faint echo inside his mind.

‘This is a part of it, too, Greed,’ Ling says. ‘You can’t just have the good moments. You can’t only be in it for the thrill. Caring about people means there are always going to be bad days.’

‘I don’t know what he wants me to do.’

‘Neither do I,’ Ling admits. ‘But the important part is caring enough to figure it out.’

Ed isn’t speaking anymore, but Greed sees him bring the sleeve of his jacket up to wipe at his face underneath his draping bangs. When he approaches, he does it slowly and cautiously, like he’s nearing an injured animal.

He places his hand on Ed’s shoulder. He can feel him tense up at first, but not long after, Edward adjusts and decides to fold into his touch, still hanging his head.

“Maybe there is a way…” Ed mumbles into Greed’s shirt, one hand resting on Greed’s hip. “The souls of your philosopher’s stone. They’re from Xerxes, right?”

“Huh? …Uh, I mean, some of them,” Greed says, really not sure where this is going. “The ones that remained when Ling held onto my stone… But the rest are from the scientists of Amestris who—”

“But some of them _are_ Xerxesian,” Ed presses.

“Yeah.” Greed breathes the word. “Some of them are.”

Ed is gripping the fabric of Greed’s sleeve when he leans his head back far enough to look Greed in the eye. Ed’s bright, puffy eyes, glossed over with apprehension, seem to have a new spark.

“Thanks for pissing me off,” he says. “It really helps me clear my head.”

“You’re… welcome…? Or— I’m? Sorry?”

“I need you to do me a favor. These souls… You can talk to them, right? Hohenheim told me he learned the name of each and every soul in his philosopher’s stone, so I know it’s possible.”

“Wh— I mean—”

“I need you to talk to them, and ask them if there’s a way to reconnect me to my Portal of Truth. If anyone knows if it’s possible, it’s them.”

It’s the last thing in the world Greed wants to do, but he knows how important this is to Ed, and what it could mean if they did have the answers he was looking for.

He spent decades trying to train himself to tune them out, and even longer trying to detach himself from them. And now that Ling is around to talk to, it’s like child’s play pretending they’re not there.

Bringing them back into the fold, after all this time… How could he possibly ask them for something?

‘I can do it,’ Ling volunteers after a beat.

“Okay,” Greed says aloud instead. “I’ll see what I can do.” He raises a brow, trying not to frown. “But I can’t make you any promises.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

‘I appreciate the offer, trust me,’ he says in answer to Ling. ‘But you don’t exactly know Xerxesian.’

Ed smiles a small, tired smile, then wraps his arms around Greed’s middle and Greed uncertainly returns the hug. He finds, however, that it’s remarkably easy to relax into.

“You gotta let me know what’s up with your brother, alright?” Greed tells him.

And Ling adds, taking control for the time being as he gives Ed a gentle squeeze, “We’re both here for you. Just tell me what you need.”


	23. Chapter 23

Al gasps upon awakening. His throat is dry like the desert air had just tried to claw its way down into his lungs, and his body forces him to cough in an attempt to remedy it.

The only other person in the room, which Al thinks may be the man who ran from him after attacking Scar, turns to look at him from above a map spread out on a table. He’s draped in dark grey robes with burnt orange for accent, hair pulled back in a similar fashion to Ling’s signature style. His spiky bangs are a mess over his face, and the dark bags under his eyes are made even more prominent by the lowlight of the square room.

“You’re from Xerxes, aren’t you?” the man asks, tapping a spot on the map that Al can’t quite see. Al squints and pulls at his arms, but upon feeling resistance, he knows he’s chained to the wall, restrained by his wrists and his neck. As his eyes adjust further to the light, he sees drawn symbols on the floor, likely in chalk, but they don’t quite seem like any alchemic channels he’s ever thought to use.

“…What…?” Al says after a long moment.

Zai Ban chews the inside of his cheek, and Al can tell he’s thinking. Taking everything into account.

“Are you Xerxesian? You certainly look to me like you are. You and your brother both.”

Al coughs again when he tries to talk, then collects enough saliva to swallow it down for his sore throat.

“I’m Amestrian. Xerxes is that city that was destroyed hundreds of years ago, right?”

Zai Ban narrows his eyes. Alphonse, in response, tries to look just as confused as it takes to be convincing, deciding to go for a blank, lost expression.

“What is this?” Al asks after a moment. His voice is hoarse. “What are you _doing??_ I don’t know who you are, but I’m just— I’m really thirsty, and I’d appreciate it if you’d let me down.”

“That’s not how most people beg for their lives.”

Zai Ban makes his leave from the table and wanders closer to Al, arms neatly clasped behind his back.

“You’ve got a pretty classic villain aesthetic going on,” Al says. “I think begging for my life is probably going to end up fruitless. I could be wrong, I guess, but—” A small, single cough escapes him, “I just like knowing I _did_ ask nicely first before breaking myself out.”

Studying him for a moment further, Zai Ban eventually reaches out and touches the back of Al’s right hand. He bends it just far enough to inspect it, and Al’s wrist doesn’t cut enough into the metal for it to be painful, so Alphonse allows it without resistance. He’s way too tired for this.

“Do you know of the Golden Man?” Zai Ban asks after releasing Al’s hand. “The Sage of the West? He was said to be a man from Xerxes; an immortal god walking amongst us mere humans. It is he who brought forth alkahestry to this land and teased the leaders of our country with falsehoods of immortality.”

“That’s a funny story,” Al says. “But no, I’ve never heard of it. Sounds like your leaders were pretty stupid though.”

With a scoff, Zai Ban nods, and looks away. There are stone pillars in a circle in the room, etchings carved all the way up them, from the base to the ceiling.

“I would say you’re right to think so,” he agrees.

“So…” Al rubs his tongue to the roof of his mouth, trying to get that damned itch to go away, forcing back his instinct to cough. “Are you the one who’s been killing all of the royal siblings? I feel we should be upfront about ourselves. For example, I just got out of the hospital, so I’m in a pretty sad state at the moment. Your turn.”

Zai Ban shifts just enough to look at the only entrance to this room—a door with gold trim, glimmering faintly in the room’s light.

“Being a prince… is not an advantage in this country. You are born into the understanding that you must kill, or be killed, in combat. This is considered honorable. My father, and many Emperors before him, intentionally bred a great number of children in the hopes that whoever came out on top would be the strongest and most deserving of the throne. This may seem alarming to you.” He returns his gaze to Al once more, setting his jaw. “But the truth of the matter is, right and wrong are entirely constructed by tradition.”

“Ah, I get it.” Alphonse holds Zai Ban’s gaze with an unspoken challenge. “Cold-blooded murder is honorable in your country. I wish it told me that in the travel pamphlet.”

Al can tell he’s struck a cord within this man, even though he doesn’t react beyond the most minor facial expressions. He turns his back to Alphonse and walks slowly towards the chalk-drawn array on the ground, taking two steps down to the circular area in the center of the room.

“I can do nothing with you until my master returns,” he says. “It’s a shame, really. But a part of me wants you to understand. I want you to see through my eyes.”

“I’m definitely open to discussion,” Al retorts, and though there’s a desire to be snarky with his words, he mostly just sounds tired.

It appears Zai Ban doesn’t notice. “A group of warriors from a warring clan came to my land when I was only an infant,” he says, for the first time sounding solemn, still facing out over the symbols. “They hoped to kill my mother while she was in her latest stages of pregnancy, you see, but my grandfather could sense when they were coming. There was a reason he was our clan’s chieftain after all.

“He could not save his daughter, but he managed to pull me from her womb after their ambush, and in the process, while he tried to store me away, he knew my cries meant he would be found as well.

“Others from my clan were in hiding, afraid of the battle between our warriors and the intruders. Afraid of what their destruction would wreak.

“My grandfather passed me, just a newborn child, along to an eleven year old girl, and told her to escape. He went to face them, but he did not return.

“Do you know what clan these warriors hailed from?”

Al blinks at his words, looking up at the cuff around his left wrist to see if he can find a way to detach it or get his hands to touch together at the very least. “Uhh… No. I told you.” He twists his wrist and pulls slowly, noting he can probably dislocate his thumb. “I’m not from around here.”

Part of the mechanism in the golden-framed door clicks, and Al shifts his gaze from the shackles to the entrance.

Zai Ban straightens his posture as they hear another click and the heavy door churns, like it’s being unsealed from the outside. Zai Ban’s voice runs cold. “It’s fitting that the Yao clan would sit their heir upon the throne after callously killing a pregnant woman in the name of ‘honor.’”

The door finally opens, darkness cascading in as if it’s its own entity, and Al’s golden eyes meet another pair of the same on a Xingese woman: twin features of the same ancient culture, faded from the world long ago.

\--

Edward has to really push himself to keep up with Ling’s long strides.

“If there’s any secret passageway or unknown room Zai Ban may have brought your brother to, the map room might reveal it,” Ling says quickly, and Ed’s impressed he doesn’t even sound vaguely out of breath. “If that’s not the case, I’ll address the council myself, through a state of emergency. Foreign policy, I’ll admit, isn’t exactly where my strong suits lie, but there’s no better time to figure it out than the present!”

“Right,” Ed breathes. They move past the great sitting room he and Al found Seaweed in when they first entered the palace (what a dumb name), and even though that was just the day before, it feels like it’s been ages. Even in Ed’s state of panic, he somehow feels more _right_ than he’s felt since Ling left Amestris and crossed the desert.

And it oddly has nothing to do with Ling at all.

Days that stagnate—the days that feel like they go no where at all and sit on the edge of leisurely—Edward has never felt alive in those moments. They’re wasted on him.

It’s only ever been when he was fighting for something, or to something, that he had purpose and significance, and though he wishes it didn’t involve Al in this way, in this situation, it’s so easy to face it as something _real._

What was the end goal, he thinks, after restoring their bodies to their original form? What came after that?

He’d never considered it.

But it can’t just be more of the same. It can’t be going back home to the Rockbell’s cozy house every few months and having a nice dinner, and train rides that go to new lands where he can’t poke his nose into their business, simply because it’s _not_ his business, and settling down and living a _normal_ life.

But it feels like that’s what everyone _expects_ him to do now.

He watches the way Ling’s hair moves, all loose and flowing thanks to Ed’s handling in the garden, and how his walk of purpose has so much weight and power to it, and Edward thinks… he wants to be like that. He wants to _feel_ like that.

He wants every day to be unexpected, with new mountains to climb, and mysteries to unfold, and secrets of the universe to unlock. Unrelenting. Unending. And if that’s what it means to be with Ling—

If that’s what it means to be with an immortal human-based homunculus and ruler of a foreign country, well—

Ling swings open the doors to the map room wide. There’s a grand mural of two dragons intertwined detailed across the ceiling that begs for Ed’s attention, but as he forces himself to focus on the task at hand, something just as peculiar and demanding catches his sight before he can even look at the map.

He spies something at Ling’s hip, where there’s this moving orange glow: like part of a fishing line with an arrow on the end of it. It’s such a strange sight that he’s not even sure what he’s looking at, or if he knows how to describe it, and he squeezes his eyes tight once as Ling mutters to himself and unfurls a map of the palace grounds.

“Ling… what’s…?”

“There are three maps of the palace,” Ling explains, or at least thinks he’s explaining. “But the problem remains: I didn’t grow up in Hangzhou, nor this palace and—”

“No. No, no. What’s— What’s in your shirt. Or your pocket? Or?” He waves his outstretched arm, pointing aimlessly. “There’s a glowing thing.”

“Ed, I really don’t think—”

But Ling looks down and sees it too—this line of light through his clothes—and his chest feels like it constricts as he realizes what _must_ be in his pocket. What he left in his pocket.

Of course he pulls it out, and in the palm of his hand lies a severed finger, lines of a burnt orange tattoo glowing down the middle with a vibrant light that seems to stem from no where at all, and ends where Lan Fan had cut it clean off.

“That’s…” Ed clicks his tongue, words lost on him for a beat. “Why do you have a finger?”

“Lan Fan gave it to me after I was attacked— It was from my assailant.”

“Okay, but why is it in your _pocket?”_

Ling furrows his brow hard. “What else was I supposed to do with it?”

“You didn’t think— maybe—? You should _throw it away?”_

‘I don’t know,’ Greed says to Ling. ‘He kinda has a point.’

‘Oh, _can it._ You’re the one who put it there.’

“Is this really going to be our priority, right now?” Ling bickers back, dropping Naraka’s finger on the table next to the map. It rolls a small distance away, and he taps the map on the hard wood, locating the map room. “So, here’s where we are. Now, I’m a little fuzzy on the layout on the backside by the gardens; Greed is a creature of habit when he’s stressed and—”

‘ _I am not!’_

“I mostly have his memories to go off of.”

“Helpful,” Ed says, leaning his elbow on the tall, rounded table.

“If I had to guess, however, I would say there’s probably a small door under the staircase to the cellar or the storeroom. There was a secret entrance in the throne room, but it was sealed up centuries ago, and the stories are so well known that even commoners know about it.”

Ed meets Ling’s eyes. “Are you sure about that? That it was sealed.”

“Even if it wasn’t…” Ling stares back, thinking hard. “It would be too much of a risk to use something so well-known to the public.”

“Unless…” Ed says, “That’s exactly _why_ they’d use it.”

It’s clear Ling has this same realization as Ed is speaking based on the way his eyes light up at the words, but their revelation is soon interrupted by the sound of primed wood being melted, a sizzling noise mixed with a soft _pop_.

The finger Ling had discarded to the back burner of priorities melts through the table with ease, leaving behind an oblong hole that quickly drops all the way to the floor. And as it begins to burn though that as well, the boys exchange glances and then squat to watch it go, down down down, and when Ling expects it to cease, to hit the stone foundation the palace is built upon, it doesn’t, and there’s a hollow sound as it falls further still.

Ling uses the edge of the table to swing himself under it. He looks up at the seared-through hole above him, and then down at the empty expanse below. He’s mindful not to touch the edges of the cavity in the floorboards, but he peers down into it with one eye.

The wood begins to creak in protest and parts of it _crumble_ , like it’s been turned to mere ash on the inside, and Ling has to roll away as the primary board affected falls below them. This wood is much older than the table. Hundreds of years older.

“Ed…” Ling says, glowering down at the faintly lighted room below as the glowing symbols on the finger fade. The throne room entrance wouldn’t be far from here, closed up or not. “How much do you like being right?”

Two more of the floorboards, damaged from the intense heat—Greed remembers the way it had melted his diamond-hard shield and shudders—crack and whine from the weight of the table, and Ling sucks in a breath as he gets up on the other side.

Edward helps him move the map table as far as they can, and then Ed stares down into the unknown chamber below before breaking into a smarmy grin. He cracks his knuckles, jams his metal heel against the boards that want to give way the most, and the remains fall to the ground below them with an echo.

“Glad to know I’ve still got it.”

With that, he jumps down into the abyss.

He hits the ground with a dull thud after a few seconds and looks around. There’s a long corridor shaped by stone walls on either side and wooden pillars for framework. It looks like a part of a building that wasn’t completely finished, but it looks nothing like the interior of the palace.

What stands out the most are the carvings in the stone not far from where he’d landed. There’s a depiction of a large sun, and while it looks very similar to the cultist drawings May had sketched for them, the eye in the center raises the hair on the back of Ed’s neck.

“What do you see?” Ling asks. He has a torch now up at the hole, which Ed appreciates. Especially as he slowly backs away from the eye of God, swallowing hard.

“There’s nothing down here. Just some weird carvings.”

“That better not be true,” Ling says, unimpressed. “Because I don’t know how to get you out.”

Edward laughs at that and reaches a hand out for Ling in a grasping motion. “Drop the torch down here. If I find something of note, I’ll come back.”

The response is deadpan now: “And if you don’t?” But he does as he’s told and gives Ed the flame, which Ed catches with ease.

“If you’re really so unsure about it, let Greed figure it out.”

Ling watches the light move down to the left, and he presses his teeth together hard as the echo of Ed’s hastened footsteps begin to fade as he half-jogs down the hall. He can sense Greed’s trepidation like it’s his own, and maybe—maybe it is.

‘We can’t let him go alone,’ Greed says. ‘You _know_ what she did to me. And to Lan Fan. He won’t stand a chance if she’s down there.’

Pushing off the ground, Ling takes one last look into the darkness and heads for the door. ‘I’ll let the staff know what’s going on, and then we’ll follow him.’

‘Fine.’ Greed doesn’t sound happy about it, but he doesn’t argue either.

The door creaks open before he even touches it, and Ling cranes his neck back, stilling.

“I told no one to enter while I… was…” He trails off as Guowei enters the room, pushing the door so it would swing closed behind him. Ling’s brow presses into a ‘v’, and he defensively takes several steps back, aiming to protect the hole in the center of the room from Guowei’s further prying.

“Edward already informed me of your threats,” Ling says lowly. “I don’t know what you could’ve said to make him believe you hold any power here, but I’m asking you to leave.”

“Are you scared of me, little brother?” Guowei replies, studying Ling’s body language. “I just came to check in on you. To make sure you’re being a good little Emperor.”

The way he challenges makes Ling force himself to square his shoulders and widen his stance, refusing to show weakness.

“I’d rather not fight you.”

“Because you know you would lose without your friends,” Guowei says instantly.

“Because it doesn’t have to be like this.”

Greed is frustrated and on edge, and it doesn’t _help_. ‘He’s trying to distract you,’ Greed says. ‘He’s stalling for time or he would’ve attacked you already!’

“Accident?” Guowei asks, pointing just over and behind Ling, and Ling doesn’t have to look to know he’s referring to the burnt floorboards.

“My friends are skilled in very powerful alchemy from the land of Amestris. Sometimes it gets out of hand.”

‘God _dammit,_ Ling. Don’t make me take control from you!’

Guowei thinly smiles, nodding as if he understands. “Amestris,” he repeats. The country’s name sounds so much more foreign from Guowei’s mouth. “The military state. They’re at war on all sides, I’ve heard. I don’t expect you to know much about foreign affairs at such a young age, but an alchemist from Amestris sounds like a _threat_ to Xing. All they will bring is destruction.”

“As if the downfall of our people is what you’re concerned about,” Ling practically spits.

“Oh, it certainly is. I spent my entire life in this palace, watching our father hold the reigns of an empire he was determined to spoil. Countless lives have been lost to his cruelty and selfishness.

“I refuse to let you continue that legacy.”

Ling raises his hand to his head as Greed forces control, and the power of it has him sway backwards, letting out a yell that begins low before it raises in volume, until Greed’s voice is at the forefront. He uses this extra adrenaline from battling his counterpart and crafts it into momentum, shoving hard at Guowei, teeth bared.

The larger man is thrown against the door, and falls back on his ass, and Greed propels himself down the gap in the floor.

‘You’re being _reckless!”_ Ling declares.

‘You’re not being reckless _enough!”_ Greed bites back.

He looks over his shoulder as he hears Guowei drop down behind him, and pushes himself as fast as he can. He ends up ramming his shoulder against a wooden pillar in the center of the walkway (who the hell built this place like this?), and Guowei throws his body at Greed.

“I don’t _think_ so, monster,” Guowei says just as they collide.

They both go rolling, and Greed reaches out for the stone wall with carbon claws, digging into the hard surface to slow their descent down the decline the hallway has turned into.

When Guowei swings a fist to hit him in the face, Greed catches it with his blackened palm, and it amazes him how he has to actually _try_ to hold him back, even now.

“Newsflash, asshole: You’re _crazy!”_ Greed says. “I just want to— save my—” And he brings up a foot and shoves against Guowei’s chest— “ _friend!”_

Greed pulls himself to a crouch and frustrated anger flashes in his eyes as Guowei prepares another attack.

‘ _Greed!’_ Ling says, voice desperate. ‘Don’t _kill him!_ He might know where Al is! _”_

‘He’s not going to tell us _shit_ , and you _know_ it!”

Greed throws Guowei up and over his shoulder, breaking off the man’s bull rush, and he hits the opposite wall from the force. Greed’s claws extend from both hands, and he heaves in breaths as he approaches.

‘ _Ed_ wouldn’t want you to do this!’

Greed stops. He can feel himself shaking, and even in the near-darkness, he can see several cuts and scrapes all over Guowei’s usually pristine face, and places where his shirt is ripped from their scuffle.

Small red flashes of light zip over his own body as his skin heals from the same thing.

“Well?” Guowei says, breath shallow. “Cut me down, already. Just as you did our siblings.”

Greed understands every word of the Xingese this time, but he wishes he didn’t. It doesn’t make the rage inside of him boil any further. It only makes him sad. He knows a younger version of him would have killed without thought.

“No.” Greed collapses to one knee, also trying to catch his breath. “I won’t,” he mutters weakly.

Ling uses Greed’s vulnerability to seize control again, looking up into Guowei’s face. “Please: I don’t want to lose my friends. I don’t want to lose anyone.

“I just want the fighting to stop.”

The eyes that look back at Ling don’t stem from the cold, angry void from before, but rather, the regretful countenance of a man who realizes he might have been fooled into believing a well-constructed lie.

“You really mean that. Don’t you?”


	24. Chapter 24

It all happens in the flash of a moment, with no time to spare. Al contorts the joint of his thumb at an unnatural angle until he can feel something tear and pop: the crunching of bone sliding wrongly against muscle tissue.

He presses his hands together and then grips his metal collar, altering its mass to a small weapon of sorts, akin to a shiv.

And then just as the first time, he performs his alchemy to shift his last shackle, the one around his right wrist, into brass knuckles, and the steel forms around his fingers flawlessly before Al drops to the ground for one last transmutation.

It brings him great unease when he catches out of his peripheral vision that the woman—the newcomer—only walks slowly towards him, while Zai Ban tries to rush towards Al’s redecorating plans.

Why does she seem so calm about this?

He shifts the floor into a wall that arcs up and over him, then connects to the wall he was chained to. It caves in the floor a little, but he is as careful as he can be about not destroying the integrity of the room too much; he can tell they’re either underground or in an a cave, and having his entire body crushed from a cave-in is _not_ how he wants to die.

Zai Ban’s rushed footsteps fade as he stops in front of Al’s makeshift hiding place.

“He didn’t need an array!” Zai Ban says. “If I wasn’t sure before, I am now, and—”

It sounds like he’s cut off by something, but Al listens and hears nothing, and then Zai Ban replies in Xingese. It seems as if there’s an entire conversation that transpires, but he never hears the woman speak. Only Zai Ban in his foreign tongue, where it seems like the beginnings of an argument. The prince sounds desperate.

The next risk he has to take is going to be the kicker—it seems like Alphonse has been left with three options.

He can dig up, he can dig into the wall, or he can use the makeshift wall he’s created and try to hit one or both of them with it.

He doesn’t really like any of his options, but at the very least, the adrenaline makes his disjointed thumb hurt less.

And then, it feels like his options are limited further, as he hears faint footsteps nearby and the rock begins to bake from the outside in, and it feels like he’s suffocating from the heat it generates inside his little cubby hole.

Al has to focus his transmutation on the ground now, as the wall isn’t possible to interact with by any physical means, and even the floor is hot as he drops to one knee. He bursts out of his self-made cage and Zai Ban shields himself from the debris by turning and covering his head with his arms.

And then as Alphonse gasps for breath, he hears his brother’s voice.

“Hey!” Ed calls out. “No one kidnaps my brother and gets away with it!” The light from his torch almost makes Al dizzy as Ed swings it around. “You know what happened to the last person who tried that?”

There’s a sound of daggers, and Al can see the woman as his world hazes over, turning to black for a beat.

Ed’s voice rings in his ears: “Well… let’s just say he didn’t make it!”

Ed certainly notes that it’s two against one, but the woman looks on the leaner side, and more importantly, he has a _personal vendetta_ against Zai Ban. He runs for Ling’s half-sibling first, swinging at him with the torch as a distraction before tossing it up and over Zai Ban’s head on a low duck, catching it in his non-dominant hand. He side-sweeps with his leg as a secondary distraction, and as Zai Ban dodges it, Ed uppercuts into his rib cage.

Zai Ban makes a pained noise and tries to grab Ed’s wrist, but Ed twists his hand just enough that the flame grazes Zai Ban’s forearm. Pulling back quickly makes Edward drop the torch, and with the motion, drops his body as well, forcing his shoulders and the brute strength of his upper half into Zai Ban’s leg.

“Brother!” Alphonse calls out.

Oh, yeah— The other one.

Naraka is already on the other side of the room during their scuffle, which at first feels like a win. He assumes she’s trying to avoid the fight, but in actuality, she’s shut the door and is looking at them with a thin smirk across her face.

Zai Ban grabs and twists Ed’s arm in his thin frame of distraction, but Ed elbows sideways at the perfect time, and it catches Zai Ban in the jaw.

It’s dirty, but he uses the opportunity to jab his knee up into Zai Ban’s crotch, and then hits him with the flat side of his hand, backhanding against Zai Ban’s temple. It’s a move that can sometimes knocks people’s lights out.

Zai Ban does fall to the floor, but he moans and rolls over to his side, clearly still conscious.

Ed grits his teeth and approaches Naraka.

“Just give it up, already,” Edward says, rubbing his wrist with his thumb, eyes fierce and full of life.

Her hand is outstretched on the door, missing the first finger, and he can see the glow of the tattoo that extends up her arm and shoulder, even through her clothes. Ed’s brought back to the map room and the hole burned clean through the table. He finds himself swallowing at the idea that this is the woman who defeated Greed _and_ rendered Lan Fan’s arm inoperable in some strange twist of alchemy.

The door smokes, and Ed can feel the heat rising off of it, and then it’s _her_ turn to stalk towards _him._

Ed’s eyes widen at the feral look on her face, and he finds himself taking a few steps back.

“That’s pretty neat,” he says, pointing unsurely at the door, only assuming through the information he has that she must have heated it to an immense degree. “That’s not alkahestry, right? You’re using alchemy. I thought that wasn’t well-known in this country?”

Al manages a transmutation that rumbles through the floor and it nearly knocks Naraka against the wall, but she dodges just in the nick of time.

Zai Ban crawls towards Ed on the other side of the destroyed part of the floor, and grasps at Ed’s ankle. It has him stumbling until he falls down the two steps to the center of the room, skidding across some of the chalk drawn there.

“You’re supposed to stay down, man!” Ed calls to Zai Ban, who’s pushed back up on his knees.

Al pants, physically drooping, and Ed calls out to him. “Al!”

When Al doesn’t respond, he scrambles to his feet, but Naraka already has her hands together, and places them on the floor, and Ed can feel heat waft off the top step when he approaches, a short wall of flame igniting all around him. He inhales sharply, reeling back.

“You should not have interfered,” Zai Ban says, still breathing heavily, but mostly recovered, dusting off his knees. “If you care so greatly about your brother’s life, fine; it means nothing to us if you are the sacrifice in his stead.”

\--

Ling extends a hand to help Guowei to his feet. After a moment of consideration for everything that has transpired, Guowei accepts.

He’s just as physically dense as Ling expects him to be at his size, but it’s no chore to get him standing again; he only needs a wider stance.

“I have much to apologize for,” Guowei says, gaze drawn down to Ling’s feet in shame.

Ling smiles airily and puts his hands on his hips. “Oh, no-no, don’t worry about it! I think there’s much to be said for how difficult it can be to read another person’s intentions, and with everyone so tense now that father has passed away—”

‘Ling, we _have_ to find Ed.’

Ling brings his hand to his mouth and clears his throat, looking down the expanse before them. It’s eerily quiet, and a chill runs up his spine.

‘Are you… scared?’ Greed finally asks.

‘What? No.’

“Come on,” Guowei says, and he beckons Ling down the slope, nodding in that direction as an offer to be a guide.

‘You _are_ ,’ Greed presses, this reverie coming like a challenge that pushes Ling to follow after his older brother, trying not to show timidness outwardly.

‘I can handle this just fine, thank you very much.’

‘You really shouldn’t lie to _me,_ y’know. Since I’m in your head, I’m bound to find out the truth sooner or later.’

Guowei traverses the tunnels very much like someone who knows where he’s going; he lived his whole life here, and it shows more in moments like this than anything else. And it’s easy to trust that his intentions are good, even after all the squabbling they’ve been through, because honor and integrity means so much in their culture that it becomes transparently clear when a person lacks either.

‘Greed…’ Ling sighs. ‘I feel like _you_ should understand. I feel like you should be _afraid_. I wasn’t even present when she… hurt you. But I certainly don’t want to be. Recalling that memory was enough.’

‘Since when are you afraid of a little pain?’

‘It’s not that,’ Ling responds, and he means it this time. ‘Pain is one thing. Pain is temporary. But you… I’ve seen first hand that _you_ are not. And I don’t want to lose you.’

They round a corner to a forked path, and Guowei chooses the side on the left. They pass by an ancient chestplate with more sun regalia on it, propped up on a metal bodice. It feels alive somehow, and Ling walks a little faster as they pass it. Guowei side-eyes him.

‘Don’t you get it, pea-brain?’ Greed says flatly. ‘That’s exactly why we need to hurry. We have to be brave for _Ed_. And Al. They’re even more fleeting than I am.’

Ling finds himself recalling the inaction that brought forth the death of Greed’s friends. The slow-pacing through the sewers, like he had all the time in the world. The bonafide pissing contest between Greed and Wrath that left the chimeras vulnerable to attack. He can faintly recall the way Greed’s eyes glossed over after he sat in the tunnels, holding Bido’s body, blaming himself, and knowing that for all the second chances he’d been given, there wasn’t a rewind button on this one.

It starts to grow unnaturally warmer as they reach the end of the hall, and there’s a door with a metal wheel on it, like a vault, and Guowei grunts in frustration upon approach.

“There’s no getting in this way,” he says. “We’ll have to go around.”

“What? Why? You don’t know how to open it?”

Guowei ushers Ling away from the door, and in the dim light Ling realizes there’s heatwaves rising off of it. His eyes widen in horror.

“There is another way inside. But it will require brute force.”

Ling follows, glancing back once at the door. “I’ll take it you’re good at that, right?”

\--

Edward feels like he’s suffocating. Fires aren’t meant for the underground. There’s less oxygen. There’s less air to spread the warmth to and thin it out.

He thinks of a dozen ways out of this situation and they all involve alchemy.

“Al!” he tries to yell again, but the flames make him cough, and he covers his mouth with both of his hands, trying to stave off the smoke in his lungs. He’s not sure how long he’s conscious for before he’s awake again.

His eyes flutter open to the same world, but worse.

He’s shackled, just as Al had been, by his hands and around his neck; but instead of to the wall, he’s chained to the floor in the middle of the circle. Zai Ban is watching him, hands behind his back in that holier-than-thou way, and it makes Ed wish he’d kicked his teeth in when he had the chance.

“It’s wonderful that you came all the way to us. My original plan seemed to become much more difficult with time. We were working on it, though.”

“Yeah?” Ed says, eyes shifting around to see if he can spot Al, or at least to get an understanding of his surroundings. “And what was that?”

Naraka is at the table—he can see the top of her from his position—and she has a vial of blood in her hands that she shakes up and down rhythmically.

“Tell me,” Zai Ban says, “How is it that you are human when your father is a philosopher’s stone? It’s fascinating, really.”

The woman sets down the vial and Ed watches as she speaks to Zai Ban through sign language, which catches Zai Ban’s attention for long enough for Ed to listen and observe. He just has to _think_. There’s a way out of _everything._

“It was due to transmutation,” Ed lies, hoping to stall for time. “Human transmutation.”

Zai Ban and Naraka share a look. She stills her work completely as her head turns towards him.

“My dad’s a real piece of work, but he sure knows his alchemy. It’s just a shame he never taught me himself as a kid. Probably would’ve made things easier.”

Naraka signs again, and Zai Ban translates. “It appears you won’t get the chance, when we bring him back. We will need you to do so.”

Ed stirs from his train of thought. “Bring him back?” he echoes.

“Yes, of course. From the dead.”

The pit of Ed’s stomach sinks. What do they mean ‘dead?’

Naraka approaches now, and Ed struggles to get away from her as she reaches out to grab his wrist. She never looks him in the face, but he can see her eyes clearly: a bright gold that matches his own, despite her otherwise Xingese appearance.

“Don’t you want to know how he made me human??” Ed asks, but he knows— he _knows_ he sounds too desperate to be convincing, and as he looks down to see what she’s doing to him, he spots the stump of her first finger again, where Lan Fan must have hit her with her blade and severed it.

And then he can feel as her middle finger becomes exceedingly hot, and she traces a circle over the back of his right hand, gripping his wrist so tightly with her other. Ed _screams_ as his skin is seared into, just hot enough to scar the tissue deeply.

There’s a loud crash, and Naraka pulls back abruptly, and Ed can feel himself sweating from the pain, feeling like his flesh is still boiling, and he’s shaking, and there’s commotion all around him, above and on both sides. He watches the man who threatened him earlier—another one of Ling’s psycho brothers—wack Zai Ban across the shoulder with what looks like a piece of armor on a metal post.

Ling—or Greed—Ed really isn’t sure, vaults the stairs and slams into Naraka with the full force of his shield, and he claws across her stomach with carbon nails, raking up and over her ribcage as well. The smell of blood fills the air as she falls to the ground, grasping at her wounds like she’s been attacked by a rabid dog, and he slashes once more, tearing into the muscle of her right arm.

“Alphonse…” Ed whines, staring through the chaos. “Al…”

Everything’s so _loud_ , but then things begin to still, and Ed’s eyes sting with tears, whether from pain, or stress, or the debris in the air, and he uses his good hand to grasp at the collar holding him to the ground. Trying, despite knowing the results already, to transmute it.

He puts his hands together and then to the collar once… twice… three times…

“Ed…” Ling says, and Ed cranes his neck backwards, rolling his eyes as far as he can directly behind him, and a wave of relief washes over him as he sees Ling is holding Alphonse against his chest. He sets Al down beside Edward. Even though Al can barely keep his eyes open, he smiles softly at Ed, and he does what Ed had failed to do—he frees him with alchemy.

“We’re going to have to get the guards,” Ling says in Xingese. Al helps Ed to a sitting position when he’s free of all his restraints, and they lean on each other, and Ed can see the hole in the wall where Ling and his brother must have busted through.

He sees Naraka, too, laying on the ground in a pool of her own blood, just below where Guowei is restraining the less visibly injured Zai Ban with the remaining shackles on the wall.

“I’ll do it,” Guowei replies.

“And a healer, too! We don’t want them to die before we can get information out of them.”

This time, Ed can tell when there’s a shift between Ling and Greed, and after Guowei has slipped back out of the room with Ling’s orders, Greed skips over both the steps down into the gauntlet, falls to his knees, and wraps his arms around both of the brothers, pulling them close.

“You didn’t have to do this alone,” Greed mutters, craning his head into the side of Ed’s face, brushing his lips against Ed’s ear. It’s a lesson he’s learned and internalized from Ling: “You’re not alone. We work together.

“As a team.”


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so, so proud of this chapter. dont forget to leave a kudos if you're enjoying the story so far!

It takes a long while to transport two prisoners, as well as Al and Ed, each with their injured hands, back up to the main floor. Guowei discloses that there is a proper entrance to the underground system beneath the palace, but it would take three times as long to get to it than to access the gaping hole in the map room.

There’s a rope that hangs down from it now, leaning against one of the support pillars underground in the hopes to cause as little structural damage as they can, not to further what’s already been done. Edward insists he’s capable of climbing it himself, and while Ling doesn’t doubt him, he winks in Al’s direction and hoists Ed over his shoulder.

“Put me _down!_ I _told you_ , I can climb it myself!” Ed pounds on Ling’s back incessantly, though it has no real effect as Ling scales the rope with ease.

Guowei scoffs a laugh. “Are they always like this?” he asks Alphonse, his deep voice a flowy, accented Amestrian.

Al doesn’t really have the same reservations about Guowei as Edward or Ling might have had— his only interaction with him has been the man saving his life.

So he smiles fondly up at his brother, cradling his own injured hand against his chest. “Sometimes,” he agrees. “But I think Ling tries to get a reaction on purpose.”

Ling repeats the process for Al after Ed has been safely deposited above—carrying him over his shoulder—but he’s gentler about it, and he’s mindful to climb slower. And then Ling leads the Elric brothers to the healing ward. Lan Fan seems happy to see them, but Ling has to depart to take care of social matters on their captives’ behalf, and they’re left to their devices.

Lan Fan has a shawl over her to keep her bandages from rubbing against anything. She offers her hand to Al after he’s been administered pain medicine, and he squeezes tightly when the alkahestry expert he’s been assigned snaps his thumb back into place. A small session, with a simple array, is required to heal the tendon and the muscle tissue.

They heal what they can of Ed’s right hand as well, but he’s told there’s not much they can do. But when he tests out his range of movement, it seems fine, apart from the skin on the back having the outline of a nearly perfect circle seared into it.

“What’s one more scar, really?” Ed says. “I’m just glad this is all I have to show for it!”

The dissatisfied look on Lan Fan’s face makes him remember what he promised Ling. Both of them, really. That he would ask Al for help in figuring out what happened to her automail. But before he can think of the right way to bring it up, Ling returns. He’s wearing nice, flowing garments, and he’s placed his hair back up in a ponytail, so it’s no longer draping around his shoulders. Edward finds himself a little disappointed by that.

“I have good news and I have bad news,” Ling says, joining Lan Fan and Ed where Al is still sitting on the flat bed. “Both the woman and my brother have been properly restrained in the dungeon.”

“The woman who attacked you?” Lan Fan asks in alarm.

He nods to confirm. “The very same. However, because I’m not yet of age, the council has decided _they_ will be making the final ruling on what to do with them.”

“You’re fifteen, right?” Al asks.

“Sixteen, actually,” Ling replies. “My birthday was about two weeks before the Promised Day.”

“Happy belated birthday.”

Ling smiles a soft, closed-mouth smile at Al. “Thank you. It was pretty nice of all of you to stop the world from ending just on my account.”

“Wait…” Edward says, brow furrowing. “If the council can overrule you, doesn’t that mean Guowei will have a say in their fates?”

“I don’t know about that… I’ll have a talking to him personally, and maybe we can get this all sorted out. I don’t think we have to worry about him anymore. He’s on our side now.”

Lan Fan tenses, taking her hand from Al’s to gesture in finality. “He tried to kill you in your sleep.”

“Well… It was a misunderstanding,” Ling says, a bit airily. “It happens.”

Edward laughs, leaning partway against Al’s bed, and crosses his arms. “You sure have a knack for befriending people who want to kill you.”

“You’re one to talk!” Ling sounds amused more than anything. “Heinkel, Darius, Greed—even me, to a lesser extent!”

“What can I say? It’s a gift.”

“A pretty good gift to have, I think. You have quite a sway over people, don’t you?”

“No, I think that’s just you.” Ed’s grinning, and it can be heard in his voice. It’s almost like he wasn’t tied up and physically injured just over an hour ago.

“Ah, yes. Of course. I, alone, am weak to your friendship courting rituals. It probably has something to do with the fact you never held me accountable for all the meals I swindled you into buying for me!”

Ed scoffs, and sways forward to shove Ling lightly, and Ling grabs his wrists as he does. They lean against each other. “If you’re going to bring _that_ up, you better find a way to pay me back,” Ed says, laughing.

“Do I look like I have money, Ed?”

Al and Lan Fan share a soft look, and Al looks happy—glad to be with his friends, and glad that his brother is in high spirits, even through the horrors they endured. He supposes, in comparison, this event was little to fret over.

“You’re such a con artist,” Ed teases, and his hand rests loosely on Ling’s waist, familiar and tender. Moreso than he should probably display in front of the palace staff, and he finds himself hyperaware of it, warm in both his chest and his face. Before he can add anything or Ling has a chance to reply, they notice Guowei enter. Edward pulls away. The tonal shift in the room has Lan Fan on edge and Ling tucking his hands into the draping sleeves of his hanfu robes.

“Are you really on our side?” Ed says defensively, still skeptical and knowingly holding a minor grudge after Guowei’s power play that withheld the whereabouts of his brother.

“There are no sides,” Guowei tells him. “Only good and bad intentions. A good man can do bad things just as easily as a bad man can do good things.”

“And what are _your_ intentions, brother?” Ling says. He leans his head back just enough to straighten out his shoulders and give off a more regal appearance.

“First,” and Guowei bows, hands flat at his sides, facing Lan Fan, “I would like to apologize to your vassal. I was wrong to treat her with such disrespect and contempt.”

Lan Fan’s eyes widen in surprise. To have a prince bow to her—even one from another clan—it feels improper.

But Ling says, “Very good,” and he looks pleased, and this startles her even further. “The only company I keep are those deserving of respect, no matter their background or their origin.”

Guowei finally makes eye contact with her. He speaks in their native tongue.

“If you feel it right to spit at my feet, I welcome it.” She glances down as it’s mentioned, then back at his face. “You are more than a mere pawn. I should not have spoken ill of you.”

It feels like there’s no right way to answer him but to be gracious, but when she speaks, she finds that she means it. “Thank you,” is all she says. She doesn’t know what more of a response he wants from her, but luckily he returns his gaze to Ling.

“I’ve found myself overly critical of everyone,” Guowei says, returning to Amestrian for Ed and Al’s sake. He looks over all their faces, wanting to set right what he feels most guilty for. “From a young age, I was taken under our father’s wing to become Emperor. I grew arrogant and disdainful. I was sure there was _nothing_ else I wanted in this world but to follow in his footsteps.

“He would often boast about me. That I was the lucky child. His eighth child, and the first born son of Xing. These numbers, and his favor, they got to my head in ways that, honestly, I find myself ashamed of now.”

“If this is all true,” Ling says, “why did the council not place you on the throne instead of me?”

“When I was only a little younger than you are now, I fell ill just as father had. There was a growth in the back of my head, a tumor, they said, and our healers were afraid to intervene in fear of accidentally killing the Emperor’s favored child.” He frowns through these words, not fond of the implications. “In this time, father became obsessed with the idea of immortality. He wanted to make sure I could survive beyond him, so he didn’t have to see me die. It feels strange to say it, but he was… afraid.”

Ling is much more skeptical now. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

“He was a terrible man,” Guowei agrees. “But he was a good father. To me. I know what you must think of him, but you didn’t know him like I did.

“I was so devoted to him because he loved me deeply. Protected me. I did not know any better.”

“Take it from me,” Edward inputs sourly. He looks up and away, a bitter expression on his face. “Truly good men don’t have the _time_ to be good fathers.”

Alphonse is still enthralled by the story and doesn’t want to bring Hohenheim into it. “So, what happened?” he asks. “The council doesn’t want you to be Emperor because you’re sick?”

“Not quite…” It’s clear he doesn’t know where to begin, and he furrows his brow. “Half a year after the growth was discovered, an expert in alkahestry from the Diushi clan came to our land and healed me of my impending death sentence. But that time… it changed me. My training ceased. I had no responsibilities, not even princely ones. People treated me as if I was dying, and I began to see the world differently.”

“Wait—” Ling begins to slouch again, craning his neck forward, unsure if he heard correctly. “The Diushi clan. You mean where Zai Ban originates from?”

“Yes,” he confirms. It’s the perfect segue. “Don’t you see? I trusted Zai Ban so easily because of his origin—because someone unrelated to him, but with the same _name_ , saved me from the brink of death. And I distrusted _you_ , brother, only because of what he said to me.

“I loved _father_ , because I only saw him through the lens of a young boy who knew nothing else.

“I don’t trust myself to be Emperor. I don’t trust my own judgement. And I convinced the council to let you take the throne—I boasted about your finesse and strength in the ceremony—

‘You’re welcome,’ Greed interjects.

“And I disregarded anything you did wrong, like refuse to speak to them in our language—because I wanted to prove a crucial point:

“That no _one_ man can rule a country. No one man should be allowed to make decisions that affect the lives of millions, or even thousands. No one should have that much power.”

There’s silence for a moment. The weight of this is real, and heavy, and it carries over to Ed and Al’s experiences as well. What Ling had come to their country to see and was forced to help dismantle. The power of world leaders can destroy lives. Can send soldiers to occupy lands for no reason other than a misunderstanding—one that was orchestrated by those in charge to begin with.

Edward wants to argue. To defend Ling’s integrity and to spearhead his cause. But he finds he doesn’t have the words. He finds he doesn’t disagree, in the slightest, with Guowei’s point.

But Ling does what Ling always does. He exceeds expectations. He makes himself a man worth standing up for—worth fighting for.

“You’re right,” Ling replies, voice light in contrast to the tenseness in the room. “But I never intended to be a one man show. A king is for his people. A king exists because it’s not a position most people can endure, but still, _everyone_ has their place. There has to be bakers, and mailmen, and tailors. There has to be teachers, and doctors, and inventors.

“All of these roles are important.

“I didn’t want to become Emperor so that I would have power. I wanted this so that those I left at home—my clan—could become powerful. So they could all feel spoken for in their darkest hour.

“But I was thinking too small. A good friend of mine taught me that.” He feels Greed burst with pride. “And then another friend of mine taught me _how_ to think bigger: to embrace every clan of Xing equally, even if they had wronged my own. Even if they had come for my life.” Lan Fan nods with purpose.

“An individual is not defined by their origins. An individual is not defined by their mistakes. I don’t want to live through my experiences alone, brother. I am more than happy to live through yours. And Lan Fan’s,” and he reaches out for her and puts a hand on her arm. “And Mao’s—” One of the attendants in the room looks up at the sound of his name. “And Zai Ban’s, even.

“We all represent this country. We are all pieces of a greater machine.”

Lan Fan leans into him, and he slides his arm behind her back, pulling her into a partial hug. She closes her eyes, unable to conceal her smile. Proud.

“It’s easier said than done,” Guowei cautions.

But Ling knows. He knows he can’t protect everyone. He knows even immortality is not enough to save all his subjects.

Another lesson learned from a friend. A friend who will never be forgotten, despite his loss.

“It’s true that we’re all a product of our experiences,” Ling says. “I won’t deny that for even a moment. There will be things I’m blind to, but it’s the friends you have that make life easier, and if you put your faith in them, they can stop you from being reckless. They can help you see what the right decision is.”

Ed widens his eyes, overcome with emotion. It’s the feeling of being moved, and the relief of placing that one last puzzle piece after struggling for so long. He’s brought back to Roy—talking him out of the red haze he was seeing through—wanting to destroy Envy. Edward remembers what it felt like being on the administering side of guiding a person through something like that. Being there for a friend when they’re that far gone.

He remembers his last encounter with God.

 _“Who even needs alchemy?”_ he’d said, hearing everyone he knew calling out to him, hoping desperately for his safety. _“When I’ve got them.”_

He can feel the tears stinging his eyes before they even fall, and he lets his bangs cover his face for a moment before he moves past Guowei and a few of the ward’s staff to exit the room. He hears Al’s voice call out to him with concern, “Brother…?”

Alphonse tries to get up off the bed, but Ling pulls away from Lan Fan to turn to him. “Let me take this one,” he says. “I must have said the wrong thing. It’s my responsibility.”

Al looks out at the doorway, then nods to Ling, and Ling touches Guowei’s shoulder. “Excuse me,” he says, taking long strides to follow after his friend.

The distinct dual tone of Ed’s faded red sweatshirt and bright golden hair, like the sun, rounds the corner of the right hall. Ling walks briskly, adding a bit of a jog to it when he deems it appropriate and no one is watching. Ed sure is fast when he wants to be.

Ling passes a porcelain bust of his father on the way down the next hall, and it stands out among the intricate carvings on the pillars and red and gold banners hanging from the ceiling. He notes to himself he’ll have to find a way to get rid of it later.

“Edward,” Ling finally says, crossing one last stretch before he’s sped up enough to catch Ed by the wrist.

Ed covers his face with his arm.

“Oh, Ed…”

Ling frowns and pulls him against his chest, one arm over his shoulder and the other under, around his lower back.

“Don’t look at me,” Ed says. “I’m being stupid.”

“No you’re not. It’s okay to cry. Talk to me.”

“I’m not— I’m not even _upset_ ,” he presses, giving Ling a gentle squeeze to make himself feel better. “That’s why I feel so _stupid_. I’m— I’m not upset at all. I just— You were talking back there… About the other people in your life making you a better person and helping you see the right… The right path…” Ed presses against his right eye with the palm of his hand. “That’s what it is, isn’t it? That’s what I was missing.

“I keep,” he sniffs, pressing the top of his head against Ling’s shoulder so he still can’t see Ed’s face. “I… keep telling myself that if I can’t do something on my _own_ , I’m not good enough. I consistently feel like a failure because Alphonse can still use his alchemy and I rely on it so _much_ that it’s turned to me relying on _him_. I’m scared… because I don’t know what’s left now that everything I’ve learned doesn’t mean anything.

“It’s like I have to start over.

“And because of that… I’m worried constantly about my own ability to do _anything_. I don’t feel worthy of anything. Or anyone.”

“Ed—”

“Just listen.

“For so long, all I believed in was myself. I believed that if I put my mind to something, it would and could happen, no matter what it was.

“But I lacked _faith_. I was so… arrogant. I was so selfish. That’s what it means when people say they believe in God, isn’t it? That they have faith? That they put themselves out there to accept help from others—to give and to receive. Equal exchange.”

Ling lets out a breath, and he finds himself smiling, and he tries to pull back to look at Ed.

“I think they’re both right,” Ling says. He brings the hand that was around Ed’s shoulders to rest on his face, moving Ed’s hand so he can swipe his thumb under his eye. “Having faith is believing in others _and_ in yourself.”

“But I should have believed in you. I should have believed that you would find me down there.” Ed glances at Ling’s chest before looking into his face again. “That the people who care about me will back me up. I don’t need my alchemy. I— I shouldn’t have asked Greed to find a solution. This is the lesson I needed to learn.”

“Maybe it was. But why can’t you have both? I’m not exactly the right person to talk to about discipline. It’s, hm…” He laughs a little, tilting his head. “It’s okay to want everything.”

“Is it?” Ed asks. “Are you so sure about that? What if you want something you know you can’t have?”

Ling’s eyes shine when he looks into Ed’s, searching his face for something Ed can’t quite put his finger on. Lips parting slightly, Edward stares at Ling for a long moment, seeing him in a whole new light. Like he never really realized how much they had in common before, and how someone so different, on such a vastly different path from his own, can make him feel so whole.

He wonders if Ling feels the same.

“I say… try every avenue. Think of every solution. Don’t give up, even when you think you should: not until you know something can’t be achieved.

“If it’s worth it—and if it’s meant to be—you can make it happen.”


	26. Chapter 26

_“If it’s worth it—and if it’s meant to be—you can make it happen.”_

He knows Ling is just trying to cheer him up, but he realizes it applies to their situation as well. Ling. Greed. Collectively, the Emperor of a country. Two of the people Edward cherishes most in his life, and wants close, and trusts more than anyone, right next to Al.

He’s sure there wasn’t a double meaning, but it feels…

Ed brings his hand up to Ling’s, slipping his thumb under the fingers resting against his jaw.

“I, uh…”

Ling waits, looking expectant, and Edward feels this tether between them. He flicks his gaze to Ling once, and it’s a mistake, because a fire ignites in his stomach and he envisions what would happen if Greed was in control—they’re so _close_ , and this place is too public, and—

“What is it?” Ling says quietly. It’s the kind of whisper that’s full of hope, or anticipation or… something that makes Ed feel like he’s second guessing himself through every avenue.

“It’s. Nothing.” He lowers his head, pulling Ling’s hand away from him at the same time. And then he glances down the hallway, suddenly self-conscious, but Ling does the heavy lifting for him: he takes two steps away and puts his hands up, guilty as charged.

“I’m sorry,” Ling tells him, then places a hand over his heart. “I’ve been out of line. _We’ve_ been out of line. We can take a hint.”

So, the dual meaning _was_ intentional.

Ed breathes out, _“We,”_ echoing the word. Because of course Greed is watching. Yes, he’s watching. He’s always there. Ed _knows_ that, but it’s still so hard to wrap his mind around; especially after spending three months with primarily Greed, losing him suddenly, coping with his death, and then being thrown back into this shit show.

But he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“No, Ling— It’s not like that.” Edward sighs. He takes two steps back as well, creating even more space between them physically, but the intention isn’t to drive a wedge between the relationship they’ve carved out for themselves. Every big leap takes a head start.

“I wanted to ask you—before you left, back in Central: you were going to say something to me. Do you remember? Do you remember what you wanted to say?”

Ling looks surprised. He blinks, and then rests his hands on his elbows, looking out the tall window at the end of the hall. He can see one of the trees in the courtyard swaying from here, leaves growing more yellow, just a tint, as fall approaches.

“I remember,” he says. “I was going to say… that I’ll miss you.” He returns his warm, wistful gaze to Edward, eyes opening wider and bearing his whole world to him. “I also wanted to tell you I wish you’d come with me. That home always felt like a place, until I met you.

“But none of it felt like the right thing to say.”

Edward feels shy to that vulnerability. “…What stopped you?”

“Everything,” Ling says. “I was in mourning. I thought I was being over-emotional. Too sentimental. I knew what I had ahead of me, and… that was my priority. Besides; speaking something like that into existence makes it real. And I didn’t want to miss you so much it _ached_ right after losing Greed, too.

“I didn’t realize I would, regardless.”

“That’s… really honest.”

Ling chuckles. “It’s gotten to the point where I’m not afraid to lose your friendship.”

Ed wanders over to one of the banners hanging from the ceiling, its gold tassels shifting just barely in the gust of the hall. “When you say home…” He touches the end of it, and he thinks about how far away from Amestris he is. How far from the Rockbell’s, and Resembool, and Central. His entire support system.

Ling watches him for a moment before he sighs.

“Edward… I’ve tried to be as clear as I can where I stand about this. It’s just as much of a risk for me as it is for you. Maybe more, even. I’m not expecting a response from you immediately. You’ve barely had the time to think it over.

“But I can’t continue to wear my heart on my sleeve like this if you give me nothing in return.”

He has Ed’s full attention again, and Ed is taken aback. He hadn’t even realized that’s what he was doing—or not doing, to put it more accurately. Ed is stricken by this awareness and he plays over several of their moments together in his head before he snickers softly, feeling like an idiot.

“You’re right,” Ed says, his tone painted with shades of his laughter, and he rests his hand on his stomach. Ling can see the circle-shaped scar on it. “I honestly didn’t mean to do that. From my perspective, I guess things were a lot more obvious.”

Ling deadpans. “Well, it’d be nice if you shared with the class.”

Still smiling a little, Ed comes back to him, taking Ling’s hand, but avoiding eye contact. “I’ve had plenty of time to think this over,” he counters. “Ever since Greed cornered me, I’d—”

“He’s really sorry.”

Ed laughs again. “I had already made my decision then. I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’m a pretty decisive person. I like to think so anyway.

“Everything else was a calculation. It’s like a hypothesis, right? I had the idea, but I had to make sure there was no room for error. And, let me tell you, there definitely is, but…”

“But?”

Tracing the lines on Ling’s hand, Ed takes a second, and then he says, voice quiet, “You want… to be with me. Like. Like, in a romantic sense?”

“Ed, please…”

Ed turns his head completely to the side, refusing to look at Ling, and he mutters, “Just answer the question.”

There’s another pause, because Ling knows it’s not a trick, but he’s also been trained to be cynical in the case of direct questions like this.

‘I’ve been trying so, _so_ hard to stay out of this, but—‘ Greed says.

‘I appreciate that.’

‘You already said you’re not afraid to lose his friendship. Just answer the question.’

Ling chews the inside of his cheek, and his fingers curl around Ed’s. He can hear footsteps—most of the staff has been delegated to the map room, or working on this case, or called upon by the council. He looks down the hall where they had come from, and he sees none other than Guowei. His brother only spares them one glance before nodding and avoiding the hall they’re in, continuing straight down in the direction of the spa.

Releasing a breath he didn’t know he was holding, Ling presses his eyes shut hard for a moment.

Guowei was right about the challenges that come with ruling. Everything is easier said than done. So many things will be expected of him that Ling will have to fight for, or in some cases, fight against; and even if it’s not war, or about money, or about his people’s lives on the line, he still wants this to be one of them. Something he can fight for because it matters, even if it doesn’t seem like it should.

“Of course I want to be with you,” he says. There’s finality to it.

Ed smiles, flustered, but mostly holding it together. “Okay,” he mutters. “Now, let me talk to Greed.”

“Okay?” Ling asks, surprised. “What does ‘okay’ mean?”

“It means okay!” He pulls Ling’s hand back to his face, leaning into it. “It means okay. Just let me talk to him.”

Ling reels from the implication, but Greed, on the other hand, accepts it without another thought. There’s no time for Ling to permit Greed’s authority, and the homunculus sparks with Ed’s endorsement, clinging to it and instantly translating it to limitless consent. As soon as he takes control, he wraps one arm around Ed’s waist, the other gripping his chin, and pulls him forward into a hard kiss.

Ed makes a noise in the back of his throat, startled, but he gives way after a moment, feeling every muscle in his body numb at the touch. His fingers grasp at the front of Greed’s royal attire until its panels are loosening, and tugging open, just from the weight.

After his mind finds it can process conscious thought again, Edward pushes at Greed, trying to keep him at arm’s length, alert and scanning their surroundings, but Greed is smiling at him. He leans forward, into Ed’s space, and Greed’s grip on his back is entirely to thank for him not falling on his ass.

“Wh— You don’t think this is— _What if_ — What if someone _sees_ us? Then, then you’re— What if—”

Greed’s grin is on the drunken side of self-satisfactory. “What if _what_ , kid?”

“You can’t— You can’t _call_ me that,” and his voice cracks as he fans one hand over his face, feeling the sting of his lips, and he can still feel the ghost of Greed’s mouth on his own.

“Oh, yeah? And what if I want to?”

“You’re insatiable, you—”

“That’s kind of my thing, yeah.” He spins Ed just enough to make his footing less sturdy, and moves his mouth to Ed’s ear, kissing just below it and then again, on his earlobe.

“Greed—” And Greed scoops him up off his feet, quick enough that Ed instinctually wraps his arms around his neck. “I need to get back to Al— Don’t you have things to do??”

“Nope,” Greed says plainly, flipping open the window at the end of the hall and bounding through it to the outside. It’s not raining today, but the clouds threaten rainfall in a dark grey sheet above them, and Greed hums as he slips into the corner of the inner courtyard by the yellowing tree, where a small metal chair sits next to vine-like berry bushes. “I’m on lock down until the council handles the pandemonium you got caught up in.”

He deposits Ed into the chair and sits at his feet, placing his hands on Ed’s knees so he can wedge between them. “You’ve been real cruel to me,” he says.

Edward keeps his hand against his face, looking at Greed from the space between his fingers. "You're pathetic, you know that?" he says, rather facetiously, even letting loose a small chuckle. The uncertain smile on his face fades as Greed’s hands move up his thighs, and he watches with tense shoulders. “I guess I’m just your own personal hell, huh?”

"Sure," Greed says, shrugging once before he slips his hands up Ed's shirt and shimmies his body between Ed's knees where he is on the grass. "But I've always liked your fire, kid. You bring out a side of me no one else does." He's flashing that shark-toothed grin of his, and his hands curl up Ed's back under his shirt. Greed's voice grows haughty. "I want to _swallow_ that fire and let it burn me from the inside _out_."

And then he's leaning forward to place a wet kiss on Ed's skin just above his waistband.

Edward doesn’t say no—he doesn’t even _think_ ‘no,’ but he’s drowning in paranoia, and embarrassment, and as much as Greed has pulled him in physically, he’d already made up his mind about his plan.

He was decisive; he said so himself.

“Hey, Greed,” he says, grabbing his arms as they’re disappearing behind Ed's back, stalling him. “Look: I have a deal for you."

"You do, huh…?” He licks his lips slowly, exhibiting his hunger for what Ed has to add to the pot—a sycophant lying in wait for his next command. "I'm listening…”

"You want whatever it is I have to offer?” He slides Greed's hands off him so they now rest just beside his legs on the metal chair. “Alright. I'm all yours.” There’s an air to his voice of acceptance, and Greed raises a brow.

“But first, I get a date with Ling."

Greed stares until his nose crinkles up like he's smelled something foul, and he groans in exaggeration, dropping his head on the metal right between Ed's thighs, face down. It makes a thud as he connects with the chair.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Placing his hand on Greed’s neck in comfort, Ed pets him softly. "Hey, I say it's a pretty good deal. You want me to sign off on it?"

‘This is all new to us,’ Ling tries to explain as Greed mopes. Ed’s touch gives him strength. ‘The fact that Ed is setting boundaries is a good sign. I… should honestly do that, too.’

‘You have boundaries?’ Greed asks skeptically.

‘Do you not?’

He can feel Ed’s hand grow still near his hairline. “Greed?” Ed asks, blinking.

‘I’m not going to tell you what to do,’ Ling assures him. ‘But to put it in a way that makes the most sense to you, I think what he’s trying to say, is that he already knows he’s yours. At this point, he just wants to know if we’re _his_.’

Greed resurfaces. His wine-red eyes aren’t dilated with desire or looking for a way to bargain, he simply watches the concern trickle over Ed’s face, and lets out a breath through his nostrils, the corner of his mouth cocking up slightly.

“Yeah, yeah. You’ve got a deal.”

The grin on Ed’s face is worth it.

They’re interrupted as a grumble, even more impatient than Greed, escapes from Ling’s stomach, and at the end of it, Ed knows he’s talking to Ling again. Ling pitifully whines and wraps his arms around Ed’s calf, nuzzling the side of his leg.

“Do you want to cash in that date now?” Ling asks, voice still a tragic mewl. “I’m so hungry, I don’t think I can wait any longer.”

Ed stands up and Ling is still wrapped around him. “Oh, come on,” he says. “You give up so _easily_. I’m not carrying you.

“How about you grab a snack from the kitchen, you let me get some things done, and then we can have dinner tonight?”

He tries to pull his leg away, but it only manages to slide Ling a few inches across the grass.

“What time even _is_ it? If it’s close to four, I see no reason we can’t classify this as dinner…”

The question fires off a rage within Edward Elric that he cannot possibly put into words. He growls under his breath. “Maybe I would know that… If I _had my goddamn pocketwatch!”_ He throws his hands in the air and Ling finally looks up at him.

“Did you lose it down in the tunnels?” he asks.

Another long suffering groan. “No,” Ed says, and it’s his time to whine. “I made a stupid, reckless decision in the moment, and because of it, it was accidentally left in East City.”

“Back in Amestris??” Ling gets to his feet, wiping his clothes off of grass and dirt. His lower half is moist from the soaked earth.

“Unfortunately.” Ed raises a hand to his head, agitated. “I’m so _angry_ with myself. I’m so used to having it that _not_ having it feels like I’m missing something really important. All the time.”

Ling pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, trying not to laugh. “Like a limb?” he says flatly.

“Oh, ha-ha!” He huffs. “But, yeah. Kind of.

“You know, what _really_ pissed me off,” and he puts his hands together, cracking his knuckles, “is when I first showed up here, we went to go talk to Scar, and he pulled his own pocketwatch out, like he _knew_. He _knew_.”

“Scar…” Ling repeats, rubbing his jaw in thought. “Right. You mentioned that. You mean the man from Ishvala, right?”

“It’s just Ishval—Ishvala is what they call God, I believe, but yeah. Apparently May asked him to help out after—Well… I’ll explain it all before we eat tonight. Or during, I guess.”

Ling’s tone is practically sing-song. “You mean, our _date?”_ He perches on Ed’s shoulder with his hands over lapping each other, and rests his chin on his hands.

Edward passes him a side-long glance. He smiles.

“Yeah.” It makes his heart flutter. Not in the ridiculous teenage way he’d always make fun of others for, but as a basic comfort. He understands what Ling meant by ‘home being more than a place.’

“But I meant it,” Ed adds. “There’s a few things I have to do first.”


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today marks exactly four weeks since I posted a chapter, I am sooo sorry!! Things should be back on semi-schedule. I've had four photoshoots, came down with a 101 fever, and I spent quite a while sitting on this because of writer's block directly related to the first scene in this chapter. NOW THAT THAT'S GONE, I hope I can push through faster.

Ten-thirty. Somewhere between ten and ten-thirty in the morning. That’s when May had told Alphonse to rendezvous at the grotto. They could relocate from there, and considering that Scar was never a wanted criminal in Xing (as far as he knows, anyway), he’s less wary about being seen in public.

But the Elrics never showed up.

An hour passes, and May can tell noon is approaching because tourists are beginning to gather for a jaunt up the mountainside. Scar glances at her every once in a while, expressing his patience—expressing the zen that comes with trying to find inner peace—but he doesn’t need to say anything for May to know he’s testing her. He’s curious how long she will let this play out before she gives up.

Shao May, bundled up in a cloth napkin in May’s pocket, peaks her head up with a small noise.

“I know, girl,” May says, scratching the top of the runt’s head with one finger. “Something must have happened to them. Alphonse wouldn’t just forget about us.”

It makes no difference to Scar. As long as May is with him, he knows she’s not being threatened. Vengeance can come any day, whether it’s today or tomorrow.

Maybe one of those days he will finally feel worthy of his Ishvalan brethren. He’ll return to Amestris and make good on Miles’ offer to join forces to spread the word of Ishvala to the refugees. For now, he doesn’t think he’s been molded into the kind of person who can do that yet.

“O _kay_ …” May’s voice is layered with disappointment, but she slinks over to Scar from where she waited eagerly at the entrance. He checks the time. It’s ten past noon and the tourists are heading off. “We can go… But we should probably stop at the palace to ask if the Elric brothers are alright.”

“Fine by me,” Scar agrees.

He keeps his eyes peeled as they follow the path down the mountain to the car. The sky is really clearing up for the time being, which likely means the assailants will stay hidden in their little sanctuary until they have the cover of darkness or the cover of the summer rain.

It smells fresh in Hangzhou—everything is clean, and green, and thriving, and Scar can’t help but wonder what May’s home was like in comparison. From the sound of it, it must’ve been just as decrepit there as the slums his people now inhabit back home.

“Chang May?” The voice of an older man calls to them. Scar ceases looking out over the trees from the steep mountain walkway, on high alert. The elder man making his way up the mountain is tall for his age, and more grey than brunette—the aging wrinkles across his face telling a story of political pressures and hardship.

At his feet, a thin, snow-white, oriental shorthair trots up to them. The lean cat circles around May and Scar in a figure eight, then sits facing the old man like it’s waiting for something.

“Chieftain Yao…?” The girl seems surprised, but Scar distrusts the name just as much as any other.

He can see the way the man studies him.

“Are you going to introduce me to your warden?” It’s spoken in Amestrian, likely in an effort to be polite.

“Oh,” May says. “Well, it’s really the other way around, you see. He needs a _lot_ of protecting.” Scar huffs in amusement until May is looking at him with a fond expression and he can’t help but smile too. “Most people call him Scar, but you can call him whatever you like.”

The chieftain closes his hands together silently and bows deeply to Scar. “I am Yao Li Yu,” he introduces. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I am the head of the Yao clan.” He waits a beat for Scar’s response, but is only met with a firm unyielding gaze, so the chieftain focuses on May once more.

“I heard what happened,” he says. “That our clan turned you away when you arrived, looking for sanctuary. I am so sorry, May. If I had known…”

“I understand.” May nods firmly. “You’ve been nothing but kind to me since I returned from Amestris, so you can believe me when I say I don’t hold it against you. And I’ve made a friend in your nephew. I’m glad he was chosen to lead our people, but… shouldn’t you be leading yours? Why are you here?”

“Merely to check up on him,” Li Yu says. “He was not in a state to take care of himself, let alone take on a daunting task such as this.” He turns, eyes fixed on the horizon and out in the direction of the palace below the mountain pass. “But… they would not allow me entry. It seems the guard is on high alert.

“No one enters and there are to be no audiences held with the Emperor.”

Scar and May share a brief look.

“Then… Chieftain,” May says. Shao May has crawled higher in her pocket, shimmying out of the napkin, to growl at the sleek white cat as he paws gently at May’s pants. “I’m curious… Why come all the way up to Jianxian bridge?”

“Oh,” he lets out with a chuckle. “That much is simple. This cat found me and he ushered me to follow him. A very persistent little thing.

“When you get to be my age, you listen to the signs the Dragon tries to guide you with.” Li Yu smiles with his eyes the same way Ling Yao might. “I suppose, today, that brought me to you.”

\--

Lan Fan has a protective sling with material like a tarp over both her chest and what’s left of her arm.She’s putting on a proper outfit—proper for her—not just the palace colors packed neatly into a distinctly feminine brocade blouse. She’s dressing herself with her lightweight undershirt and her armor, and Alphonse is standing beside her with hands on her waist and her shoulder for support.

It’s clear she’s off-balance without the weight of her automail.

“What— Where are you going, Lan Fan?” Ling asks as they return. He glances once at Ed as he crosses to the table that holds Lan Fan’s detached arm, studying it with that flash of curiosity he always has.

“To talk to the prisoners,” she says. Her hand extends to Al in a simple show of trust, and then she slips her shoes on, using him as a pillar.

“Why would you want to do that? I don’t—”

“I need to know what they’re— Oh, ah— Sorry—” They both pause for a second, unsure who should talk, and then she says, sheepishly, “I spoke over you. I suppose I got used to Greed.”

He laughs. “You made it a habit to assert yourself, did you? It’s okay. I more or less remember.”

“You could hear us? Even though you couldn’t communicate with us?”

“No,” Ling says lightly. “I acquired his memories when I came back. I’ll explain later.” He nods to her for permission to speak. “Go ahead.”

Lan Fan draws in a slow breath. She squeezes Al’s hand in thanks when she’s finished dressing, and rests her hand across her middle, self conscious.

“I want answers. On what they did to me. On what they want with _you_ , or Edward for that matter.” She looks in Ed’s direction and he glances her way at the sound of his name, drawn away from the arm and into the conversation. “If the council decides to execute them for treason, we’ll never understand what this was all about.”

“I understand that you’re angry.” Maybe it wasn’t the best word choice, but it certainly wasn’t wrong. “I think it’s noble of you to want to do so, but maybe intervening while the council is debating what to do with them isn’t the right time.”

“There _is_ no other time!” She recoils from her own words. “My lord,” she adds. “…You’re not listening to me.”

“Ling,” Ed says delicately, tilting his head down. His fingers brush the table as he speaks. “You said you were hungry, didn’t you? Why don’t the two of you get a bite to eat and discuss this over lunch?”

Ling’s light gaze has a welcome smile in his eyes. After a beat, he extends his hand to hers. “Well?” he asks. “What do you say, Lan Fan?”

His expression is as winning as a puppy dog’s: bright and pleading. She _knows_ him. She knows him too well, and she can feel it in her chest that he’s going to convince her to his way of thinking no matter how boldly she stands her ground.

It feels like so much rides on this, and she’s not used to pulling the strings. It feels wrong, but so many things feel wrong—because she was trained her whole life to be obedient and to fight for other people’s beliefs. Not her own.

“Okay,” Lan Fan replies carefully.

There’s no doubt in her heart that Ling Yao is a good man, or that he _should_ be Emperor of Xing. He is not, however, infallible, or omniscient. It took losing her grandfather to realize that.

“But I want to talk to Greed.”

Ling is taken aback by the demand, and even when Lan Fan places her hand in his, he doesn’t fully register the weight is there until a moment later. Ling shakes himself out of it.

“Very well.”

The tension leaves the room when Ling and Lan Fan do, and Al releases a sigh that almost sounds like, ‘ _phew’._ Edward already had his back turned again and he closes one eye, hands on either side of the frosting automail—or whatever it classifies as now.

“Al…” Ed says slowly. “Do you think you could try to transmute this and see what happens?”

Al hops off the clinic bed and wanders over, giving one glance at the door. “This is what you want to talk about?” he asks. “I was worried, you know. I’ve _been_ worried. What did Ling even say to you?”

Ed holds his breath, the kiss making its way to the forefront of his mind. “Wh- _hat?”_ he laughs out nervously. “It was nothing, Al. I was over thinking everything and it just.” Ed fumbles a little as he talks and his knuckle makes contact with the metal. He pulls back with a small shriek as the frozen surface burns his skin.

Edward quickly pops it in his mouth.

“What do you think it is…?” Al says, intrigued by Ed’s injury.

His brother speaks around the knuckle between his teeth. “I dunno. But i’s our job as alchemists to figure i’out.”

Al leans in just as close—it’s mesmerizing, the way the arm seems to siphon the heat from the air so consistently. What kind of substance could do something like that without melting?

“I’ll give it a go, but because I don’t know what I’m working with, I’m probably going to destroy whatever piece I use.”

Ed frowns around his finger. “I know,” he says. “But i’s not like La’ Fa’ can use it righ’ now an’way.”

Alphonse joins his hands together, and then Ed quickly reaches out to grab his wrist in a panic. “Wait,” Ed says. Al can see how red the burn is and it makes it easy for him to quickly put the pieces together.

“Oh, yeah… How am I supposed to transmute it if I can’t touch it?”

“Hmm…” Ed rests his hand on his elbow and taps his other hand to his lips, thinking. “I have an idea… But it’s the _definition_ of a long shot.”

Al raises a brow skeptically. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Just hear me out— Mustang,” Ed says. “He transmutes by snapping his fingers, right? What if you tried doing it that way?”

“I can try, sure… But I’ve never done something like that before.”

“Scientific breakthroughs are all about experimentation,” Edward says knowingly.

“I guess that’s true.”

Al draws in a slow breath through his teeth, focusing on the shoulder piece of the arm. The idea of not touching what he’s transmuting seems careless—it takes one of his main senses out of the equation, and he’s not sure how he’s supposed to focus on the target without it.

But he claps and extends his hand as he snaps, squinting hard at the top piece of the shoulder. The second it happens, it really does feel like an ignition.

There’s a loud blast as the metal pieces shoot out like shrapnel at the wall—Ed covers his head with his arms and sinks low into a crouch.

Al jumps back too, but it’s over so fast that he’s only a little shaken, so he leans over the table to look at his mess. The wall, now pierced with fragments of Lan Fan’s arm, is just as _wet_ as it is cracked, like someone had sprayed it with a hose. Edward blinks, and he approaches, reaching out to touch the substance. But when he sniffs the moisture from the explosion, it smells like nothing.

He puts it in his mouth.

“Brother—” Al says.

“What?” Ed blinks up at him. “It’s… just… water?”

“Water?” Al replies, more confused than he’d like to admit.

Edward decides to act on a hunch and pulls one of the shrapnel pieces from the crack in the wall. It doesn’t burn him.

“Well, we know one thing now,” Ed says, rolling the metal fragment around in his hand, between his fingers and in his palm, like he’s playing with a coin. “This doesn’t make any damn sense.”

It’s about this time that he realizes the entire room is staring at them, and he starts to get the feeling it’s not in awe.

“I… think we’ve overstayed our welcome,” Ed says. He grabs Alphonse by the hand as he closes his fist around the piece of shrapnel and tugs Al out of the room.

\--

‘So…’ Greed starts, and while he doesn’t have control over their body and can’t currently let out a low, uncomfortable whistle, Ling gets the gist. They walk down the hall, Ling in step beside Lan Fan, mostly in silence, but she holds open the door for him as they pass through a sitting room.

‘I don’t know what she’s playing at,’ Ling replies. ‘But she is our friend, and she’s had a rough couple of days. Weeks, even.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Do what feels natural.’

‘Wait, what—?’

Greed doesn’t have time to argue before he’s dropped into the foreground of their consciousness and he looks at Lan Fan with the most general, cheeky smile he can manage. This time, there’s an ounce of fear in it.

She side-eyes him.

“I’m going to be upfront with you,” Greed says smoothly. “I don’t really wanna be caught in the middle of whatever heated… _thing_ the two of you’re—”

“There is no thing,” she replies. And she was right before. It’s much more comfortable cutting Greed off mid-sentence than it is Ling. “I want to do something that he doesn’t want me to, but I also don’t want to disobey him.”

“Right. Right. That… doesn’t sound heated.”

This time when she opens the door for him, it’s to the royal dining room. A tall ceiling and chandelier hold as the centerpiece, where below there’s a table that could seat thirty people. The tones in the room are more muted than the rest of the palace interior, but there are just… way too many patterns. There’s too much to look at.

The room gives Greed a headache, and that’s precisely why he never eats in here.

She pulls out a chair for him, then sits in the one beside it, and Greed clicks his tongue, looking between the two.

“You know… as open as I am to having this conversation, I think I’m gonna head to the little boy’s room first.”

Lan Fan collects the bell to summon an attendant. “Do what you need to do,” she says, not even glancing in his direction.

Greed books it out of there with his tail between his legs. Ling tries _really_ hard not to laugh, but it slips out in the form of a giggle. ‘She’s not going to eat you, you know.’

‘I’m not convinced. We’re about to have lunch, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed—there’s nothing on those plates yet.’

‘Don’t remind me how hungry I am,’ Ling cries. ‘That’s going to be the hard part…’

‘Not taking over once you see food?’

‘Mhmm…’ He sounds sheepish about it, but for all it’s worth, there’s little shame.

Greed’s gait becomes more leisurely once he feels like he’s out of Lan Fan’s threat range, but he does as he said he would and makes his way to the bathroom. It feels eerie that he runs into so few members of the palace staff, but he knows they’re being kept busy with specific tasks (especially that of the map room).

It means that when he _does_ see someone, and it’s Guowei of all people—very much _not_ enjoying a nice afternoon at the spa—Greed stops what he’s doing and can’t help but keep an eye on him.

‘Just leave it be,’ Ling warns lightly, tired. ‘I’d like to get this conversation with Lan Fan over with so we can begin to plan tonight’s affairs with Edward.’

The words spark a fire in Greed’s core, even as he watches Guowei examine the immediate area cautiously and move towards the end of the hall where the door down to the dungeon looms ominously.

 _“Alright,”_ Greed can hear Ed say in his mind, voice level with acceptance. _“I’m all yours.”_

Greed narrows his eyes and chews the inside of his cheek.

’Yeah. You’re right.’


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I worry that I have way too many conversations that aren't relevant to the plot, and then I remember that the plot is LITERALLY their relationship unfolding and the "action plot" is just added bonus.

There are already two steaming plates at the table when Greed returns. It smells like heaven with a side of cooked vegetables, and Greed can’t help but wonder why he didn’t make it his life’s goal to become the leader of a country a long time ago. The perks are undeniable.

“Feel better?” Lan Fan asks. She doesn’t _sound_ angry.

Greed takes a seat this time, and the notion that at the end of this day he really _will_ have a new possession brings him a courage that little else could.

“I’m not speaking for him, but… I think Ling’s worried you’re gonna strain yourself by talking to these perps. You just went through a traumatic event and he’s trying to look out for you.”

“Look out for _me_ ,” she says. She pushes the broccoli off to the side, separating it from the rest of her food. “It’s my job to look out for _him_ , and that’s what I intend to do.”

“I know it’s your job. The thing is: you’re human. And your body’s gone through hell in ways that mine doesn’t know how to anymore. Stress can exacerbate that, yeah?” He forks the pork tenderloin and barely finishes the bite before he continues, twirling the utensil in circles with his thoughts. “What you did with Bradley was. Brave. Horrifying, but pretty fucking brave. Probably the coolest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

“What do you mean?” She feels lost, finally looking over at him.

“The diversion,” he explains. “Cutting off your own. You know.”

“I didn’t do that for you— What— When did he tell you about that?”

Greed licks his lips and stabs another piece of meat, dragging it through the sauce. “He didn’t. I guess we ended up exchanging memories or something when he came back. But that’s not the point. You push yourself too hard and then you want _more_. I can respect that.

“But where does it end?”

Lan Fan sets her fork down and rests her hand in her lap, looking down at it. The stump of her other shoulder is beginning to throb, and as much as she hates it, she knows he’s probably right. It’s the stress.

“I’m the older one,” she says.

“Well, you’re definitely not older than me, sweetheart.”

The glare she shoots him is half-hearted. “I meant I’m older than Master Ling. By almost two years. I’m supposed to be the responsible one, but I always feel like he doesn’t trust me with more than simple tasks.”

“Uh…” This feels awkward. “He can still hear you.”

Her face drops, hidden by the shelf of her bangs, and her cheeks heat up in embarrassment. “I know,” Lan Fan says quietly. “I’ve wanted to address this. It didn’t seem like a viable option, but you’re here now.

“I used to think that he was right to make choices for me. But when I look back on the dynamic of our… team?” She pauses and looks to Greed shyly. “I’m not sure what the word I’m looking for in Amestrian is. _Zōngpài_.”

‘Faction,’ Ling says. Greed repeats it, but aloud.

“When I reflect on the dynamic of our… faction, I realize that my grandfather spent a lot of his time using every moment as a learning experience for Master Ling. I want to continue that work.”

Greed finishes his bite and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “That takes life experience that you don’t have, kiddo.”

She is quick to narrow her eyes, observing him as he eats with slight vexation. “You keep acting as if I’m so much less experienced than you. Like you know so much better than me.”

“Mmm… It’s only natural that I do,” he agrees. “I _am_ over two-hundred years old.”

“Maybe. But you don’t act like it.”

“Huh?”

He has his shield covering his pinky finger and the claw is extended just far enough for him to use it to reach into one of his back teeth to dislodge a string of meat. When his eyes flick her way, she feels like she’s already made her point, but the surprise in his expression presses her to explain herself.

“Look at you,” she says, and she gestures to all of him. “You lack manners. Sophistication. You don’t _really_ know how the world works. Perhaps in a literal sense, you have more life experience than me, but I think there’s something to be said about the way you choose to apply it. Sometimes I feel like I’m talking to a child.”

Greed’s bottom lip quivers, like he’s having trouble computing what to say, and he takes a moment before clearing his throat.

“I _do_ have feelings, y’know.”

“What I’m saying isn’t intending to hurt them, but if you can’t take criticisms, you only further prove my point.”

He clicks his tongue, arms crossing, and when he looks away from her, it holds the air of a wounded pout. “Well, _I_ think if you don’t know how to say ‘ _sorry’_ when you hurt someone’s feelings, then _you_ aren’t acting like an adult.”

They both sit there in silence for a moment, and while Greed isn’t one to normally assert himself through stubbornness, Ling can feel him radiate genuine disappointment. It’s intriguing to him, even after he’s watched Greed slowly pick up the other sins and virtues of humanity over time. It’s intriguing to see him become more human, almost as if every interaction he has with people teaches him to be a real person, and it’s only now that he finds Lan Fan is right.

Greed has a lot of catching up to do.

“I’m sorry,” Lan Fan says, caving to Greed’s frozen silence and his tightly folded arms. He relaxes as the words process and when he looks at her again, it’s fond.

“Ahh,” he drawls, head slightly tilted. “I couldn’t stay mad at you if I wanted to.”

She smiles.

“I think, since I’m in control and all,” Greed says, picking up his fork again, “You should just go do what you need to do.”

“Speak with the prisoners?” she asks immediately. She’s wary about the answer; she bites the inside of her cheek.

“Yeah. And if you’re curious, Ling hasn’t said anything. He’s not even trying to stop me now.”

She searches his face, but she doesn’t see any reason for him to lie. Her plate is only half finished, but she feels like she’s eaten more than enough, and she pushes out of her chair quickly, taking a deep bow to him.

“Thank you, My Lord,” she says.

It’s only after she leaves that Greed realizes it’s the first time she’s ever referred to him that way when they were alone.

\--

Edward shuts the bedroom door behind them as Al tiredly heads to the bed. That plump striped cat he so quickly adopted, Seaweed, is stretched out over their sheets, and Ed crinkles his nose, having forgotten there was an animal residing among their things.

“I’ve been thinking,” Al says, sitting off to the side as to not get in her way, stroking her soft coat fondly. “Your birthday’s coming up soon.”

It catches Ed’s attention, if only because it’s so unexpected, and his fingers curl more around the piece of scrap metal in his hand. “What? Oh, I guess it is.”

“Do you have any ideas what you want to do for it?”

He snorts and crosses to his bag on the floor, opening it to fetch his notebook. “Not really my thing, Al. You know that.” His voice trails off into slightly more of a mumble. “Besides, I’m sure Greed would get all twisted over the idea and make it into something big.”

“Greed…” Alphonse stares into the cat’s eyes—she slow blinks, and he does it in return to show her he’s trustworthy. “You two are really close, aren’t you?”

Ed freezes just as he removes the book and sits back on his knees. “Uh. Yeah. I mean, we’ve been through a lot together, so it’s only natural.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. It’s just… well… You’re like best friends.”

“I… guess… you could say that? Is there… something wrong with that?”

“No! No— That’s not what I meant.”

“If this is about Winry, I don’t really classify anyone as, I don’t know, _more_ of a best friend. It’s _different_. Right? It’s like— Winry is— Winry. And Ling and Greed are— Ling and Greed. Very different.” He laughs uncomfortably.

Al has his head turned fully to stare at his brother, observing. “Oh… kay…”

Ed laughs again, and the moment he hides his face with his hair, Al rests his hands in his lap.

“I really didn’t mean anything by it…” Al says apologetically. “I don’t think it matters if you have more than one best friend… It’s only odd to me because I never really had the chance to get to know Greed. It feels like this big part of your life that I wasn’t privy to, and that’s never happened before, that’s all. I’m happy for you that you got the chance to make the best out of a bad situation.”

“Oh.”

Whatever Ed was going to take note of from their escapades in the healing ward has entirely slipped his mind. He pops the shrapnel in between the pages, closes the book, and tosses it atop his clothes in the bag.

“I’m… gonna go grab something real quick. I think I wanna take a nice, relaxing bath. And, oh— I’m going out with Ling tonight, but I’m not sure where we’re going, so… I guess I’ll keep you updated.”

“You guess?” Alphonse says.

“I _will_ keep you updated.”

“That’s fine and all, of course, but… I need to figure out how to contact or locate May. I feel bad that she might think we skipped out on our meeting.”

“I hate being late to things as much as the next guy,” Edward says, heading towards the door, “but I’m sure she’ll understand when you get the chance to explain yourself.”

Alphonse peers down and then circles back to Seaweed before picking up where he left off, scratching the cat behind the ears and under the chin, his vacant expression lost in thought, and Ed takes it as his cue to slip out.

Their room isn’t far from Ling’s, but he’s not even entirely sure if he can get inside without Ling escorting him.

His curiosities are answered, however, when there’s not a guard posted at the door and it swings wide open with ease. It feels eerily quiet inside, but as he makes his way to the bathroom and pulls open the deep red curtain, Greed’s cat is perched up on the counter with its back curved upwards in warning, right above where Edward intends to search.

“Always with the damn cats,” he complains aloud, glancing once at the cabinet doors under the sink before fully taking in Chow Mein’s scrutinizing stare.

“ _What?_ ” he demands. “I’m not getting in your way… I just want…” He crouches, warily opening the door as he keeps an eye above the cabinet. The bath salts fit into one hand perfectly and he retracts fast, putting the other hand up in truce. “See? Nothing scary. You’re alright.”

He knows the basics from all the times over the years that Al has made friends with stray animals. He understands that, in theory, ‘they’re more afraid of you,’ and ‘they just want to be loved,’ and ‘animals aren’t capable of evil,’ yada yada yada.

But there’s just something _off_ about that stare.

Ed makes quick work to leave, but before he can manage it, the most desperate meow comes from the cat as it follows him across the hard floor.

He stops and looks at it, trotting up to him, and he’s not sure what he expects, but when it meets his eyes and then rubs up against the side of his calf, Edward feels a little guilty for being so determined not to like him.

He’s standing in the middle of the royal bedroom (that doesn’t belong to him) with bath salts (that also don’t technically belong to him), and yet—

“Okay, okay…” After crouching down and resting his arm on his knee, he reaches out to pet the thing. It _is_ cute, in its own way…

He spares one fleeting glance at the open door into the hallway, but he gets comfortable down in his crouch, fingers drawing through tawny fur.

“To be honest, I’m really more of a dog person,” he admits airily, stroking down Chow Mein’s head and neck to his mid-back, watching him arch and purr along with the touch. He’s a little leaner than Seaweed, Ed notices, but his body is just as long. “It’s not that I have something against cat people, I just… always assumed they had some kind of Stockholm syndrome.”

Chow Mein crouches down with his front half, butt still levitated for the time being, and Ed scratches his side. He reaches under to try to pet his stomach—

There’s a sudden flip in the animal, like a switch, and he hisses, batting at Ed’s hand with unnatural speed. Ed yanks his arm away with a quiet swear.

“Yeah,” comes Greed’s voice from the doorway, and Ed jumps _again_. “He doesn’t like when you try to touch him there. The tummy is a no-go.”

“ _God, fuck,”_ Ed responds eloquently. It’s a surprise he doesn’t drop the salts.

“ _I’m_ completely fine with you snooping around my room when no one’s home, but it does look a little suspicious from an outside perspective.”

Ed stands, swallowing. “I… know… I thought of that. I just came here for these.”

Greed approaches as Ed shows the label of the round container with what looks like pink sand, nodding once. “They’re yours,” he says. “They were a gift, after all. And I had a few other things for you too, but never had the chance to give them to you.”

“Other things…?”

“Think of it as a welcome present.” Greed touches Ed’s arm as he passes, and he picks up a tall paper bag from the far side of his bed, setting it on the mattress. He peers down into it. “Everything else in here is for you, actually.”

Greed looks expectant, but he also has the kind of smile on his face that makes Ed’s chest tight, and his mind cycles through every moment he’s shared with Greed that made him feel that way. He comes to join him, a bit hesitant, and sets the container in his hands down on the bed. It only takes one peer inside before he looks up again.

“ _All_ of this?” he confirms. When Greed nods, he’s really not sure what to say.

“By the way… if you wanted to use my bath again, by all means.” Greed looks a little cheeky now, and Ed can’t tell if this is supposed to be read as bribery or if the two things are unrelated.

“Hah.” Ed wanders a few steps away, wrapping his hand around the bedpost at the end of the bed. “I already told you what my stipulations were. We have a deal, remember?”

“Don’t be so presumptuous, kid. I might be greedy, but I’m not without tact.”

Ed laughs softly. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“Oh, yeah?” But Greed smiles again, and this time it’s gentler, and he rushes Edward, picking him up around the waist. Ed makes a noise in the back of his throat, but he doesn’t fight it. “If all I cared about was getting what I wanted, I wouldn’t be here. _And_ I would have Darius’ fancy wrist watch for myself.”

Ed flushes in Greed’s embrace, but he makes a face and looks up and away, hands resting on Greed’s shoulders. “Yeah, you really loved that thing, didn’t you?” He rolls his eyes.

“Still do. I think about it every day. And when I can’t get to sleep at night, I count watches in my mind.”

Scoffing, Ed shakes his head as he can’t help but laugh at that, too.

Greed lets out a stunted breath, briefly mesmerized by Ed’s laugh, his shy aversion to eye contact, and his stiff shoulders. It’s all too much.

“Do you know… how hard it is… not to throw you down on the bed and start giving you—”

“ _Oh, my god,”_ Ed raises his voice to interject. He squirms. “You were saying something about having tact?”

Slowly, Ed is set back on the ground, Greed’s arms still loose around him.

“Remember when we first met?” Greed asks him, trying to get Ed to look at him. It takes a beat, and some adjusting on Greed’s part, but he does as Greed begs of him with slightly tinted cheeks.

“You mean when you kidnapped Al and then tried to kill me?”

There’s a lilt to Greed’s voice, almost sing-song in nature. “I wasn’t trying to _kill_ you.”

“You sure about that? You were twice my size and as far as I was concerned, couldn’t die.”

“And you were the best match I’d had since I left my pops and stopped training with my siblings.”

“Oh, so it was supposed to be a _compliment_.”

Ed finds that he’s starting to feel comfortable in this loose embrace. He doesn’t feel trapped anymore, and it doesn’t feel like Greed’s crowding him. It’s like the pressure and Greed’s scent have this calming affect on his anxiety that he’s never really found in anything other than throwing himself into his work.

“I brought it up because…” Greed licks his lips in thought. “You were just some dumb kid to me back then. I’ve always believed that nothing was impossible, but the idea that some punk little brat with a terrible sense of taste would make this much of an impact on me… it kinda makes me wonder what else I’ve missed out on. What I might’ve passed up the chance on at the time because it didn’t seem worthwhile.”

“…One man’s trash…” Ed mutters. “But, no, that’s— Surprisingly sentimental.”

“Is it?”

Ling chuckles quietly in the back of Greed’s mind before he says, ‘Impressing revelation and all, but I would like my promised time with Edward. I think I’ve been very patient. Moreso than you, anyway.’

Ed searches Greed’s eyes as his expression drops slightly, and he brings a hand up to Greed’s face, caressing his cheek lightly with a rhythmic movement of his thumb. “What is it?” Edward asks, voice gentle.

Greed smirks, and it seems like his pupils come to focus again, and he stares down at Ed’s mouth once before forcing himself to meet his gaze.

“Ling’s getting antsy,” he explains. “How about you get ready and meet him back here when you’re done? I’m gonna change and then snag our dinner from the kitchen.”

When Greed releases him, Ed’s body sags in protest. “Oh… okay.”

Greed places the salts that Ed left on the bed in the brown paper bag and smiles when he picks up on Ed’s disappointment. He hands the bag to him, touching his shoulder.

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Greed jokes. “Trust me, I’ll make it _well_ worth your while.” He pairs it with a wink, and Ed has to look away again.

‘Classy,’ Ling scolds, and they watch Edward leave as Greed leans against the bedpost.

‘He likes it,’ Greed counters.

Ling knows that he’s probably not wrong, but he still feels like he wants to protest, and he’s not sure why.

‘Do you really think this is the best idea?’ he asks. ‘Maybe you should give him more time.’

‘What? You know just as well as I do that if Ed wasn’t sure about something, he’d be the first one to say it. But, I’ll tell you what?’ He slowly pulls his hair out of it’s ponytail and pushes the tie around his wrist. ‘If you want to ask him tonight during your one-on-one time, be my guest. And if he says he’s not sure, or even seems like he’s not sure, I’ll… put it on hold.’

‘That’s very mature of you, Greed. Lan Fan would be proud.’

‘Yeah, well. I have my moments.’ There’s a beat as he opens his wardrobe and stares inside, and then he looks into the mirror as if gazing into his own eyes could pierce through to Ling’s soul. ‘But don’t you dare tell her about this.’

Ling laughs. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’


	29. Chapter 29

The palace dungeons have a unique ambiance. Very little of the bustle from the upper levels can be heard through the thick stone and narrow tunnel entrance. It opens up more, and Lan Fan knows, from the few times she’s set foot down here, that the dungeon is a world of its own.

Guowei’s voice carries down to her even before she can see him, and for a moment, she thinks the sentinels are going to stop her descent. She keeps her head high and her back straight. Even with only one arm, she makes herself look intimidating.

“You had to have known this was the wrong thing to do,” Guowei is saying. “I _trusted_ you. _Talk_ to me!”

She can imagine the same eyes from the graveyard back at home. She doesn’t remember what Zai Ban said to her that night, but she remembers the panic in her chest when Ling collapsed at the foot of his mother’s grave, and it sickens her that if they had chosen to strike then, Ling would be gone. For good.

“I know what you have endured,” Guowei pleas, voice pulled back and more restrained now. He bargains with sympathy instead of threats—the good cop to his own bad cop. “I’m sorry about what happened to you. Truly, I am.”

And then Lan Fan rounds the corner and Guowei is kneeling on the ground, head hanging in front of Zai Ban’s cell. He looks up a little late, like he had been too preoccupied to sense her chi.

“Did the Emperor send you?” Guowei asks. Down on the cold floor, he looks small despite his stature.

She shakes her head. “I came of my own volition. But not for you.”

A shrug shows he’s quick to accept that. “Fair enough. Do what you must.” He gestures towards Zai Ban behind the bars. The thin-framed man glares at her from where he rubs his shoulder, likely badly bruised from the impact after Guowei’s attack. It may even be dislocated. She finds that every cruelty in her heart hopes for the worst.

Lan Fan nods to Zai Ban, harsh gaze fixed upon him. “You are the heir of the Diushi clan, are you not?” She asks him. “Your people have always been callous towards us. You would do anything to end the Emperor’s reign. But… how did you know? That night, outside the royal Yao burial grounds. You followed us, didn’t you?

“How did you know Master Ling hadn’t come home empty-handed?”

Guowei is still on the floor, not far from her feet, and he looks up at her primly. He spares one glance inside the cell, then sighs. “I’m afraid he’s not going to talk.”

As if only to prove his eldest brother wrong, Zai Ban laughs with a low cynicism.

“We didn’t know for sure. It was only a suspicion,” he says. It grates on Lan Fan’s ears how similar he sounds to Ling. It’s only natural that some of his siblings might look or sound similar to him, but Zai Ban is an eerie combination of both, and it reminds Lan Fan just how good of a person Ling is by comparison.

“Based on what? You would have no reason to think he had the upper hand.”

“All of the clans were scattered to curry favor. Everyone was a threat.”

“So you _were_ planning to murder each and every one of your siblings.”

“Yao Ling was a special case. I had a favor to return.”

Her teeth clench for a moment, and then she allows herself to say, “What kind of favor?”

Behind her, from within the bars across the way, there is a slam on the inside of the cell wall. Lan Fan turns to see Naraka, staring Zai Ban down as if to quiet him with her glare. She can see the dried blood along the claw marks of Naraka’s clothes, where Greed had sliced through the flesh of her abdomen and shoulder, leaving her in the tattered remains of her dark grey and gold dressings.

Zai Ban stills and falls silent.

\--

“I was hoping when you said a ‘date,’ you meant somewhere a little more private,” Ed says, muttering at a volume that he hopes only Ling can hear.

He’s wearing the black hanfu Greed had handed him when he didn’t have his own clothes to wear. They’re patterned with a subtle, yet crisp, imperial trellis over the bottom half of the front, the collar, and the sleeve’s hem. Where they sit over a warm blanket on the grass, Ed tries to look some kind of regal, but it’s not an easy task—especially not while they’re being watched by the guards manning the gardens.

It _is_ beautiful out here, surrounded by the native wildlife and the low-hanging trees, lightly swaying in the wind. The soft trickle of the stream would be serene as well, if it wasn’t for the eyes on him.

“I’m not really supposed to leave the palace grounds,” Ling tells him airily. He places down a bowl and a square plate, and then another set for Edward before attending to their food.

“We could just… go upstairs,” Ed suggests.

“That’s not very romantic.”

Ed chews the inside of his lip and looks down as Ling places steaming dumplings on his plate. “Neither is being watched.”

Ling meets Ed’s eyes for a moment, and he feels a little warm himself.

‘…You’re… embarrassed,’ Greed says, partly amused, but mostly in awe. ‘That’s why you keep being so weird about all of this.’

‘No, I— hmm. That’s ridiculous.’

Ed tilts his head and gives up on trying to look official for the sake of the guards or this set up. He keeps one leg folded and lets the other lay out flat, leaning on the knee closer to him. “What if you just called them off for an hour? It’s not like we can’t handle ourselves.”

‘Ah, Ling, let the kid have some space. You’re thinking way too hard about what this all means. You’re friends first before anything else. Focus on that.’

“Your brother’s behind bars,” Ed continues, “and there’s not much to worry about right now while your advisors are on high alert… I just think…”

“Alright,” Ling agrees, steadfast and without missing a beat. He stands and presses down his clothes a few times before making his way across the pathway to instruct one of the palace guard about the new plan. It begins a chain reaction and Ling returns to him as they disperse.

Edward smiles and begins to dig into his food. He works with the chopsticks a bit clumsily before he can properly take a bite and his face melts at the savory flavor. There’s an aftertaste, but it’s somehow better than the initial bite, following all the way down the back of his throat.

“Wow, this is _good_ ,” Ed says.

He looks like the sun. He always does: that soft golden hair and his vibrant eyes to match, dripping with wonder and a lust for knowledge. He looks the way that Ling always imagined ruling would feel like. And now that he’s here, in the royal palace of Hangzhou, somehow Edward Elric surpasses that feeling still.

“I’m eager to have you try all the foods I grew up with,” Ling says through a small smile. “Honestly, it’s a shame that the situation calls for my post here on the throne, even though it was inevitable all along. There are still so many parts of the city I want to show you. So many parts of my hometown, as well.”

"You always speak so highly of Xing; it's a no brainer there's a lot you have to show me."

"I imagine you'd feel the same way about Amestris, now that we're not under threat of the world ending."

Ling slowly pours broth over Ed’s bowl of noodles, and the steam in the air smells heavenly. He hadn’t eaten too long ago, so he doesn’t feel ravenous, but his stomach growls all the same and he pats it softly.

“You’re a black hole, you know that?” Ed says fondly.

“I _am_ eating for two now, after all.”

They both laugh. Ed finishes off his dumpling, cupping a hand to his mouth to make sure none of the juices drip on his clothes. Ling doesn’t even notice as he starts on his noodle soup, picking out a few pieces of steak first, as it’s his favorite part.

"It's weird…” Ed ponders thoughtfully. “Now that there’s the possibility to travel my country without the fate of our lives and Amestris itself looming over us. I honestly never realized how much I loved to travel until I joined the military.” Edward sets down his chopsticks and rotates his right shoulder, rubbing the scar tissue under his hanfu.

"But regarding Xing,” he continues, “you can't tell me there weren't any… monarchial conspiracies going on here during your lifetime.”

"Oh, yes, we've had our fair share of... mishaps.

"My father was certainly a peculiar man with a plan for everything. And those plans were only ever in his favor, leading towards whatever whim he desired. I would freely blame him for most of our country’s issues."

"What about your other siblings?" Ed asks. "Out of the four dozen you have, would any of them have, uh, followed in his footsteps?"

"Most of them, probably. But that's hazarding a guess. I don't know most of my siblings! I suppose that might change now, if I want it to.

"But I'm not _sure_ if I want it to…”

Edward looks perplexed. "You didn't grow up with any of them?"

"No. I only ever knew six of my siblings, and I knew _of_ May, since the Changs didn't live far from where my clan resided.

"My sister Tayun spent a lot of time with my clan, and I grew closest to her after my mother passed away. She fell ill before I left and… I’m not sure where she is now.“

"Oh, Ling, I'm sorry.” Ed looks up to Ling slowly, reflecting the somber expression in Ling’s eyes. “May I ask… Why aren't you sure? About getting to know your other siblings, I mean."

“…Hm… I suppose it’s just that… if they're anything like my father, I'd be wary to make it sound like I want to forge allegiances with them. Inviting them to the palace may incite a reaction that I'm not looking for."

Edward nods as he watches Ling expertly twirl his chopsticks around his noodles. "Yeah. That's probably for the best then. You don't owe them any of your time just 'cause you're related."

"I'm honestly surprised to hear that from you, Ed. Considering your relationship with Alphonse." There’s a slight slurping noise as he pops the bite into his mouth.

"Al’s not some estranged family member I’ve never met. We grew up and did _everything_ together…

“Now Hohenheim, for that matter… I resented him for so long, it's hard to see him as family, but we're getting there,” he adds. “Actually…” If he thinks hard enough about Hohenheim’s departure back in Central, he can actually feel his father’s arms around him, and it doesn’t make him feel anxious. There’s a peaceful silence as he lets the memory play out. All he can hear are the birds and the soft rustling of the wind through the leaves above them.

“I think I know how you feel,” Ling agrees. “It's been nice to have May in my life, actually. Especially since things started out so rocky between us.”

“I guess that’s one pro to coming out here, then.”

“What is?”

Ed chuckles and pulls his soup bowl into his lap for easier access. “Al and May,” he says cheekily. “Don’t you think there’s something, you know, _going on_ there?”

It hadn’t really occurred to him, but it doesn’t necessarily surprise Ling either. “Is that so…?

“Sounds like you have more reason than just me to stick around in my kingdom, Edward. Be careful, or I might use this to my advantage."

"Oh, don't worry; I fully expect it from you," he says, "You'd think I'd learn to plan one step ahead of you by now."

"Ha! You'll never be able to manage that, but I can appreciate your ambition!"

"I think you underestimate my ability to take on challenges.” Edward’s grin is an audacious one, and Ling watches him for a long while as he still has a bit of trouble holding the chopsticks. It’s not embarrassing or anything of the sort, but it’s noticeable to Ling, who grew up using them.

What matters most is that Ed is enjoying his food and hopefully their time together.

When Edward peers over at him again, Ling feels the indisputable heat of anxiety return, but he forces himself not to look away.

“Can I ask you something kind of… philosophical?” Edward says, stirring his soup mindlessly.

Ling softens. “Be my guest.”

He’s not sure what to expect. He only knows he wants to be open to anything, and to be as honest with Ed as he can about both his intentions and his opinions on the world. He wants more than anything for there to be full transparency between the two of them.

“If you could ask the universe one question, would you know what to ask?"

It throws him for a loop, as Edward is known to do, but not in an unwelcome way.

"Hmm..." Ling faces the sky above the greenery with his eyes still shut, brow furrowed thoughtfully.

"Any question..." he says in just above a whisper. And then he's quiet for a little while as he considers the options.

"I think... I would ask, 'What should be the goal of humanity?' As in, ‘what should we work towards to better our world and pave the path for tomorrow.’”

Ed is watching Ling carefully. A faint smile slowly stretches across his face. “Sounds like you're already working towards that goal.

“Personally, I used to ask myself that question constantly; it put into perspective what's important to me, not that it wasn't already obvious. But now... ever since the Promised Day… I can't really find a question. You'd think it'd be a relief, but it has me more restless than anything."

When it seems like Ed’s mind is beginning to drift, Ling begins to think he knows what this is about. His alchemy. He’d told Greed to forget about it—not to try to find an answer. But for someone like Ed… Ling thinks that knowing something is next to impossible is a better answer than not knowing at all.

He reaches out with his free hand and rests it on Ed’s knee lightly. It only takes a moment before Ed accepts the touch and joins their hands together, dipping his fingers between the spaces between Ling’s.

"You know…” Ling looks out over the gardens just as Edward does. He takes in a slow breath before releasing it. “My question to the universe may be a philosophical one, but there are many questions I could ask _you_ , Ed. There’s so many things I wish I knew about the way the world works that I don't.

"And maybe we'll stumble upon a question together that neither of us knows.

"The world is a vast place, and there will always be more for you to learn. You can't do it in a single life time."

He brings their interlocked hands to his face, leaning into it.

"When I am reborn, I promise I will find you, and we'll learn the secrets to the universe all over again. Does that sound like a deal?"

"That... sounds like a pretty hefty promise," Ed says softly, but with weight. "I still have so much of this life left, the idea of another one hadn't really occurred to me.

“But we're all a part of this cycle—a pattern that repeats itself as long as the planet has a will to survive."

Edward frees his thumb as Ling leans into his hand, and rubs the skin under Ling's eye, "As long as there's life here, I suppose it's entirely possible our paths will meet again.” He smiles, but this time it’s much more smug than before; "You _are_ pretty hell-bent on fighting your way into my life."

"Yes. Yes, I am,” Ling agrees. He sits there for a moment longer, then releases Ed so he can continue working on his plate. "Fighting my way—tooth and nail—into your life, to improve the quality of it with delicious meals, of course. My company _is_ pretty nice, but nothing tops food like this!"

Ed shakes his head in bewilderment, staring over their assortment. “I fed the emperor of Xing a dirty boot and this is the meal he repays me with," he mumbles.

Ling fixes up his second plate, getting some orange chicken on his fingers and licks it off with a satisfied sigh at the flavor.

"I might have been a bit... angry about it at the time... but you did save my life in there. Granted, I don't really want to think about that whole… _debacle_ … while I'm trying to enjoy a meal.

“It. Was. Disgusting."

"Alrigh’,” Ed says, trying not to laugh through his mouthful. “Consi’er the topi’ dropp’.”

\--

It takes nearly an hour before Lan Fan begins to lose her resolve. Zai Ban is determined not to speak, and when she is near her breaking point and wants to lash out at Naraka instead, her shoulder begins to ache even worse than before, and she drops to her knees in defeat.

Guowei sighs.

He rolls forward into a standing position and puts his hand out to guide her to her feet, as well.

She almost doesn’t accept; but when she does, he nods back the way she came and begins to walk. With one fleeting glance at Naraka, she follows.

“I won’t pretend to be wise,” he starts, “so my advice should be taken in stride.”

“Good.” Lan Fan glances back down the narrow hall from the stairwell. “I have no interest in being lectured by you.”

“I have no interest in lecturing you,” he counters. “All I have is a means of perspective. Most of my life, I spent only through my own lens. It wasn’t until I understood how to see things through other people’s eyes that I learned how much our country is hurting.”

“You’re a fool if you think you’re the reason Shih Huangdi terrorized our people.”

That gives him pause, and then he scoffs in amusement.

“You’re very good at putting words in my mouth. I don’t claim to be the cause of my father’s actions.”

She doesn’t respond, so he gives her a moment, and then picks up again.

“Zai Ban is the tenth child of the Xingese empire. He was thought to be long dead at birth. His mother was killed before he was born and there was no proof that the child had been saved. Only rumors.

“I lived my life fascinated by my brothers and sisters. I wished I knew them—some would come in passing to the palace and father treated them like guests, but never family. So I learned their names and their place in the line and tried to feel connected to them, even when there were no threads that tied us together.”

“You were a lonely child,” Lan Fan says.

He spares her a long look as he holds open the door to let her out into the palace proper, and then he turns to the right, still guiding.

“I don’t remember how old I was when I met him.”

“Zai Ban?” she clarifies. He nods.

“He was younger than me, but not by much. A few years. I finally felt like the older brother I yearned to be, so I snuck him into the palace. I snuck him into my room, and my father’s, and the map room. It was our secret, but… he had so many of his own.

“Sometimes, he would get this look in his eyes and he’d leave immediately. It was the only friendship I had with a child around my age, so when I asked after his abrupt disappearances and he refused to answer, I was afraid to push him away.”

They walk down the vestibule to the inner courtyard, and after the bright light sheds in through the windows, it gets darker again. Guowei collects one of the torches off the wall.

“Eventually he opened up to me more. He would never call Naraka his mother, but the way he talked about her reminded me of myself—of my father. We lived in similar worlds. He just happened to know his place better than I did.

“He called her ‘Master.’

“And then… the more he spoke about her, the more I felt like I was losing my friend. My brother.

“He was ill in the mind. He spoke about something called the Eye of the Sun. He was convinced that the Dragon’s Pulse comes from the _sun_ , not the earth, and that the only way to assuage the Eye was to _choose_ it. It was nonsense.

“He told me that Xing was behind, in all aspects—technology, and power, and culture—and that we had to find a way to center the Eye of the Sun on our country. It would cause eternal darkness around the rest of the world. And in Xing, it would always be day.”

The guards posted at the throne room bow to him as he seeks entrance, and Lan Fan feels uncomfortable, unsure what any of this has to do with their actions from before.

“Where are you taking me?” she asks.

He tugs the royal banner off the wall from behind the throne, yanking hard enough that it flutters to the ground of its own volition. Guowei gestures for her to approach by curling his fingers.

There’s a dip in the wall, as if built into the carved architecture to be as indistinct as possible, and he pulls it to the side, revealing a slit that peers into another room.

“Zai Ban and his master have been living within the palace walls since I was old enough to drive a car—undetected, and right under my father’s nose.”


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: this chapter is what will be bumping my rating up to M (the "sex chapter," if you will), so that scene begins shortly after they return to Ling's bedroom. if thats not your cup of tea, feel free to skip it!

Alphonse is half-way through organizing his things in his room. He’s crafted a knife (that’s edging on his older brother’s flair) out of an old coffee tin, and he sorts what he doesn’t need from the backpack—mostly Ed’s belongings.

The papers given to them from the colonel flutter to the floor when he pulls out a sweater, and Al scratches his chin in thought as he picks it up.

He wonders what notes Ed has kept about this entire situation, and furthermore, what he plans to report back to Mustang. Luckily Greed doesn’t seem to be the problem the colonel had assumed he could be.

When the window opens, Alphonse freezes in his spot, like a deer in headlights.

There’s a tall, lean old man with a close-shaven, lightly-greyed beard who pulls his way into Al’s room, struggling a little over the window sill.

“This isn’t really the journey an old man like me should be taking,” he says aloud, griping about his current situation.

“I’m sorry, Chieftain,” comes another voice from just outside. It’s May’s.

Al blinks.

By the time Scar is following them inside, cradling a big-eared white cat in his arms, Al’s jaw is slack enough for his mouth to open.

“They wouldn’t let us in the front,” Scar explains plainly.

“And so you just decided to climb all the way up here? What if someone saw you! Aren’t there supposed to be guards??”

“There were guards,” May says.

Scar nods once firmly. “And they did spot us. But I took care of it."

“You _killed_ them??”

“No!” May exclaims.

Li Yu takes the animal from Scar amidst their conversation and ferries him over to the bed to join Seaweed. Seaweed opens her eyes in interest and stretches before the two felines become acquainted with each other.

Lifting his left arm, Scar exhibits his reconstruction tattoo and sniffs once, looking away from Al. “I can do much more than kill with these hands, boy.”

Visibly relaxing, Al runs a hand through his hair.

“I was going to come find you,” he says. “A lot happened and I wasn’t able to contact you.”

“Next time, you can just make a signal fire from your balcony!” May says.

“…What?”

“Ling taught me. It’s a great way to get out a message from a distance, especially in a city.”

It’s baffling to think this is how the Xingese royals communicate when they’re in danger, but he supposes it is legitimate as a last resort.

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t have been able to even if I wanted, but I’ll keep it in mind,” Al says. He studies the newcomer for a moment, then looks over Scar and May as they settle in. “I guess I have a few things to catch you up on.”

\--

With plates and bowls stacked up off to the side in the grass, Ling has moved closer to Ed, hands tucked away neatly into his robe’s sleeves. He leans against him, head resting against Ed’s shoulder, and Ed stays as still as a statue, like an otherwise wild animal has graced his presence.

They sit quietly and watch the sun sink down in the horizon, painting the sky with that honey and marigold pre-sunset tone, and the peaceful quiet between them stretches on until they lose track of time. Greed is caught up in it, too—he enjoys the pleasantry of a nice view when he’s with the kind of person you can be alone with.

As much as he liked to hear himself talk, Greed always felt that the true merit of a worthy friend was the ability to sit in silence with them and for it to feel just as comfortable as it would feel on his own.

He thinks about Roa and Dolcetto; Bido and Martel.

“Hey, Ed,” Ling says quietly, still staring ahead.

“Yeah?”

He hesitates at first, but Ed has learned how to read Ling, so he waits.

“About Greed… And about… you…”

That much has him turn his head, though he can’t see Ling’s face from this perspective. “You mean our deal?” he asks.

Ling nods against his shoulder. “I want to make sure that you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“Oh, I can handle Greed alright,” Ed says definitively. Ling can sense Greed swell with unadulterated satisfaction. “I knew what I was signing up for.”

“If you’re sure. Which— Well… it sounds like you are. But there’s another thing, though it’s likely only in my head. I thought it best to bring it up anyway.

“I guess I'm... afraid of this making a very clear division between us in your mind that I don't think is there in reality. That being with _him_ means one thing, and being with _me_ means another.”

It’s something Ling had mentioned before, the last time they were in the gardens. Edward doesn’t know why Ling is so afraid of being separated from Greed in Ed’s mind, but Greed hadn’t piped up then, and he’s not piping up now.

He knows they’re not the same person, but he also knows that the two of them are a package deal. It’s so simple to him, but maybe it shouldn’t be?

"That's exactly why it was so important that I made the deal," he explains tentatively. It’s uncomfortable to talk about this openly, so warmth spreads across his face and the back of his neck. "It's your body too, after all."

"Yes. It is.

"And... I want this just as much as he does.

"I just don't want you to forget that, or to think that he doesn't want things like this—” Ling gestures around at the food with one hand, "just as much as I do."

It’s easy to take what Ling has to say to heart. He then turns away, trying to rid himself of the blush over his face, to no avail. “So, you’ve got me curious,” he says. “If there's even an answer, anyway; how long, about, have you wanted this…?”

Ling can't stop smiling, all from nerves, even as he tries to be suave.

"The ‘wanting to kiss you’ part?" he asks. "I don't think you'll much like the answer to that question, but... I'll let you have a guess."

“Do I have to?” Ed whines, hanging his head. "I don't know, was it before or after Greed?"

"Before," Ling says. And then he doesn't stall; he just answers. "It was after you tried to shield me from Gluttony's attack. I know you probably don't want to associate this feeling with that _unfortunate_ series of events, but— Neither of us could've known what would happen, and you acted so selflessly, without thinking. With no motivation other than the fact that you cared about me.

"I had never before been shown such a sheer act of kindness from someone who wasn't from my clan."

When Ed doesn’t respond immediately, Ling begins to worry it’s not the answer he was looking for.

“I guess that is unfortunate…” Ed says delicately. He looks down at Ling again and Ling peels his head off his shoulder, meeting his eyes.

"But Ling, I didn't even have to _think_ about that. It's an instinct to protect those close to me. I guess I didn't realize you were that close until it happened.” He laughs. "We’ll never be allowed to forget that time, will we?"

“Probably not,” Ling says. “But despite everything that’s happened—or maybe in _spite_ of it—I wouldn't want to.”

Hiking his robes up, Ling gets to his feet and reaches a hand out to Ed. “It’s getting dark. We should head inside.”

Ed doesn’t release Ling’s hand even after he’s standing, and there’s still the faintest smile on his face.

“Hey, Ling?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for your time. And your friendship.”

Ling’s open stream of consciousness is focused on Ed as they head upstairs. He knows that this lull from the palace lockdown is offering them more time than they’d usually have. It’s not going to be an easy task, if he wants to be with him, and the part of Ling that’s a true idealist wars with what he knows of ruling, especially in the country of Xing.

‘I think the most important thing to keep in mind is the balance it takes to maintain a relationship while in a position of power,’ Ling tells Greed. ‘Obviously the people of Xing come first, and Edward knows how much keeping my promises means to me.

‘But as far as keeping Ed happy…’ He glances over at him, but Ed also seems to be lost in his own thoughts. ‘I think you should follow through with speaking to the Xerxesian souls that make up your Philosopher’s stone, as before.’

Greed doesn’t respond.

‘He also hasn’t mentioned any of those gifts you bought for him. Ed doesn’t really strike me as the kind of person who wants to be showered in presents, but I know your heart was in the right place. And I bet he understands that as well.’

When there’s still nothing, Ling panics. ‘Greed?’

After spending an agonizing period of time without being able to talk to him, his worst fears come to surface whenever any moment feels like solitude.

‘Sorry, partner,’ Greed says. ‘Heh. Something about gifts. Or souls. Or. Hey, maybe we could replace his pocketwatch or… something.’

‘You had me worried there for a second.’

‘That’s my bad. I’m just… thinking.’

‘About what?’

Even though Ling is in control, he can feel Greed’s avarice flair with a warrant of its own and his influence seeps through Ling’s autonomy. When he looks at Ed this time, his eyes rake down his body with a feral hunger, then make their way back up again, and once they have, Ed notices him. He smiles without a care in the world.

Ling feels empowered.

‘Oh.’

As they approach the bedroom, there’s a brief moment where the Dragon’s Pulse surges, and it feels like there’s someone on just the other side. Ling extends this thought to Greed wordlessly, only receiving a low hum from Greed in return.

Ling opens the door for Edward, eyes peeled. He’s startled as Chow Mein runs across the room to the open window, but nothing seems out of place.

‘No distractions,’ Greed says. ‘No stalling.’

Edward crosses over to Ling’s desk and sets the folded blanket from their picnic in his desk chair.

“I had a great time with you,” he says through an a cheerful smile. “And you were right. The food was incredible.”

When Ed turns around, it’s to the sound of the door closing. Ling—or Greed, rather—is pressed against it, hands against the wood on either side of him, shoulders buckled. Fire-hot eyes flicker up to meet Ed's, but Greed doesn't move from where he's leaning against the door. He stares him down with the clear indication of a challenge.

Ed is close to rolling his eyes, but refrains. The way Greed looks at him should make him uncomfortable, but he knows Greed too well to feel that way around him. Especially now.

"My, you're impatient.” Ed folds his arms loosely, bringing his knee up to rest it on the blanket on the chair. He has a faint smile. "It's good to see you."

Greed blinks a few times. He’s taken aback by Ed’s words, but they bring about a proud grin in him—it's much softer than than the predatory stare down. He dashes towards Ed enthusiastically, wrapping his arms around him in a hug.

"How'd you like that spectacular view, huh? You didn’t say a damn thing about the sunset."

"Guess I was too focused on our conversation; There'll be more sunsets."

Greed keeps Ed in an embrace, but his upper body is inclined backwards so he can look at Ed's face."Yeah, yeah,” he jests, “‘It happens every day; who cares?’ _I_ do! That shit's beautiful! Every time! I want to see all of them!"

"Alright, jeez. Next one we can watch together. I promise.”

"You keep making me promises," Greed points out, and he squeezes Ed around the waist lovingly. "I'm really liking that.

"Don't do it when you can't keep 'em, though, alright?"

He lowers his hands and grabs Ed by the thighs, hoisting him up so Ed's legs are over his hips and wrapped around him, still just leaning back to study his face. He can tell Ed feels a little unsteady in the way he grapples his arms up higher and his expression drops, but it only makes Greed feel more in control.

"When have you ever known me to break a promise?” Ed asks, fixated on Greed’s unyielding gaze. “You can ask anyone; I never go back on my word.”

"Hah, don't I know it." He licks his lips and finally flicks his eyes down to Ed's mouth, his own falling open slightly. His voice takes on a breathy tone, unashamed and hungry.

"Does that mean I get to kiss you now?"

Ed doesn't hesitate. He grips Greed from the back and draws himself in close, filling the empty space between them. His lips meets Greed's with unearned confidence—it numbs Greed from the outside as he feels like he’s going to explode at his core. He grins, even into the kiss, and takes steps towards the bed, deepening it as he sees fit.

Settling into a kneel, Greed guides Ed beneath him with his upper arm strength alone, one leg moving against the sheets until his knee is pressed to Ed's groin. A hand comes up and cups Ed's throat—not with much pressure, but just enough to make him feel like Ed is _his_ as they kiss.

The longer Ed pulls at the back of Greed’s robes, the more they’re strained where they’re neatly fastened. It loosens one of the ties enough that the left sleeve slides off Greed’s shoulder.

The way Greed kisses Ed is different than how he imagined kissing Ling. There's a lot more teeth involved—maybe he should’ve expected it—dragging over Ed's bottom lip and nipping at him, or running his tongue over the back of _Ed’s_ teeth.

A hand shimmies into Ed's undershirt and Greed can feel him shudder as fingers touch the scar tissue on his stomach. Ed presses closer to deter him from lingering too long.

Greed shifts his lips to Ed's ear soon after. "I'm going to have you screaming my name," he promises lowly, invigorated by the way Ed is arched towards him.

"Mm, sure about that?" Edward challenges. Hands of his own travel up Greed's back until one reaches the base of his neck, and the other drags his hair tie out. The way Greed’s head inclines backwards with the gentle pull makes Ed feel like _he’s_ the one in control. A shit-eating grin takes over him.

‘ _Oh my god,’_ Ling can’t help but mutter, strongly enough for Greed to hear.

It elicits a soft, “ _Fuck,”_ from Greed in turn.

When Greed begins working on the ties on Ed’s hanfu, Ed helps him.

“Why are you wearing this?” Greed mumbles. Ed laughs softly. And then when he’s left with a bare chest, exposing his scars and flaws, and Greed is so _close_ , it feels like he’s being scrutinized in a way he’s never felt before.

But Greed says, “God, kid, you're... hm..." and it sounds like he’s in awe, his eyes raking over his chest and stomach, slowly making his way back up to his face again.

"Hey, d’you mind not calling me 'kid'?" Ed says softly. Edward doesn't move his eyes from Greed's as his hands move to his chest, placed rather similar to how he would perform a transmutation.

Greed’s breath hitches in his throat. "What if I _like_ calling you that?" he says lowly. "It kinda gets me going."

“I— Well—” When Ed doesn't know what to say to that, he drops it, making fists and clutches the bunched fabric to pull Greed's lips back to him.

Greed’s moan is self-satisfying. He rubs his knee against Ed’s groin, returning to their deep kiss. And then he’s on the prowl again, slipping his hand beneath Ed's waistband to grab a fistful of his ass. He massages him a few times, rhythmically timing it to where he’s rubbing his knee against his core, and then he brings his other leg between both of Ed’s and lowers himself, grinding against him freely.

When Greed’s hand makes its way down between the curve of Ed’s ass, he positions his other arm—holding him up—so he can reach Edward’s hairline, twirling his fingers in long blond locks until he pulls just enough for it to draw noises out of him. He draws back from the kiss—Ed takes in an audible breath, a small trail of saliva connecting their lips—and Greed’s mouth places wet kisses along his collarbone until he stops, suckles, and marks him with a prominent red welt.

Daringly, Ed reaches into the front of Greed’s pants beneath his robe, only resting it there beside his hip, purposefully teasing. The hand in Ed's hair tugs back with agency, tilting Ed's head back. Greed growls through his teeth.

“I should’ve known you were the type to tease,” Greed says. He sits up partway so he can get a handle on both sides of Edward’s pants (and undergarments) and tugs down in one fell swoop.

Ed looses his train of thought immediately, but he takes advantage of Greed moving off of him to sit up more and tugs Greed’s robes from his shoulders entirely, then drops them to the floor. The slight look of disapproval Greed makes is likely Ling’s influence.

Or perhaps it isn’t—his clothes are Greed’s belongings, too.

Ed has seen Ling’s bare chest countless times, but like this, just like everything else, puts it in a different light. He’s only pulled from staring when Greed moves further down the bed, slowly, and a bit like a cat, pressing open Ed's thighs with both hands. He settles his upper body between his legs. Flicks his gaze up at him.

“Have you ever fucked around before?”

Ed resists rolling his eyes, but he does look up and away. “I’ll let you come up with your own answer for that."

Fleeting kisses dot Ed’s thigh and hot breath hits him just enough times that the electricity of it all causes his toes to curl, or his knee to twitch faintly, with every touch.

"Just answer the question," Greed says.

Edward’s head tilts back and his hold—propped up by his elbows—seems to be slipping. He smiles, mostly out of embarrassment.

"I get fucked around plenty," he says, anxious about the words. “But… no. Never sexually."

The nails of Greed's left hand dig into Ed's thigh. He's careful on the right side though, trying to stay higher and just below where his hip connects, and there, he doesn't use his nails. His elbow rests on the automail; it’s not as cold as he thought it would be.

"Yeah?" He continues to stare Ed down as his tongue makes a path up the entirety of his length, stopping just at the base of the head. It’s slow, but it’s a sudden movement, and Ed’s eyes open wide, accompanying a single consonant that fades into a whimper. One of Ed’s arms finally gives out on him. He covers his face with his arm.

Greed ‘hmph’s, grinning wide, and then he slips his lips over the head and leans down to take it in as far as he can, making a strangled noise in the back of his throat. Greed can tell by the way Ed peers at him through the safety between his fingers that he _likes_ that noise.

He simulates it a few more times, intentionally making it sound like Ed's cock is too much for him to handle. By the fifth thrust into his mouth, he can taste Ed on his tongue, and he brings his right hand up to Ed's throat, massaging again—another simulation—not quite choking, but something just short of.

He massages with pressure against Ed's windpipe, and it makes Ed’s moans a little lower in octave, and Greed keeps up his ministrations, _wishing_ Ed would say his name—or hell, even Ling's.

As if on cue, Edward exhales a soft, “Gree…” that drives Greed absolutely mad. He can feel Ed’s hand come up, like he’s going to put it over the one Greed has on his throat, but Greed tears his hand away to shove down his own waistband. He starts pumping himself in tune to the way he takes care of Ed’s needs—he can’t take him to the hilt most of the time, but he does it once as he starts pumping himself and moans deeply with his mouth full.

Ed gropes out with his hand, finally finding purchase on the sheets below him, fisting fabric with each hand. And Ling, even now, with his mind hazy from sex, can tell he’s looking for purchase. He’s always been so in tune with Ed; he can read his body language with just a glance.

‘Put his hand in your hair,’ Ling tells Greed. His voice isn’t exactly what Greed wants to hear right now, but it’s not entirely unwelcome.

Greed grunts and does as he’s told. His nails leave their indentation in Ed’s thigh to grab his wrist and guides it to his hair, which Edward takes advantage of instantly. He grips a fistful of black hair and it gives him the slightest bit of control over Greed’s wet, hot mouth, far enough to bring him to climax.

Ed’s noises climb in octave. Greed grins until he has to slap a hand over his mouth, muffling the sounds. He closes his eyes as Edward climaxes; he finishes sucking him off, cleaning him up nicely—including the cum that had dribbled over Ed’s thigh.

“Please,” Greed murmurs, dotting kisses on Ed’s stomach and over his scarring, “God, Ed, please—”

Ed has his arms crossed over his face in the shape of an ‘x’, chest rising and falling with quick, deep breaths. It takes him a moment to recover as Greed whines his name, still stroking himself. His forehead eventually presses against Ed’s hip.

“Please _what_ ,” Ed manages after a moment, and Greed groans pathetically, reaching up for his face. Greed misses the mark, naturally, but Ed turns into his hand, kissing Greed’s knuckles lightly.

When Greed doesn’t reply, Ed tugs Greed by the arm and Greed scrambles up closer to him. Reaching down, Ed tentatively runs his fingers against the head of Greed’s erection through his pants, and Greed sucks in a sharp breath, shuddering.

“Oh my god, Ed, fuck— I want— God, I want you,” he says.

It makes Ed feel powerful, how little he has to do to elicit a reaction such as this out of Greed. “I’m right here,” he tells him, not without a cheeky smile.

Greed finishes like that. Sweat is visible on his hairline and he collapses atop Ed, one arm draped over his chest. Once Ed’s breathing evens out, it _really_ evens out, and Greed turns his head to look up at him; his eyes are closed, mouth open just enough to breath through.

‘Do you think he’s asleep?’ Greed asks.

Ling settles, still recovering from his high. ‘Probably,’ he says. ‘You know, I feel like you had me a lot more worried than I needed to be.’

‘About what?’

‘This,’ Ling says. ‘I thought you were going to… you know.’

Greed licks his lips, watching Ed peacefully.

‘Hah. You never take a foal out to the race track. Even I know that.’

‘What…?’ It takes him a second to process the meaning, and then Ling sighs. ‘Don’t— Ugh. Why are you like this?’

‘Born this way, baby.’

 _That_ gets a laugh out of Ling. The talk idly for a while, and Greed takes Ed’s right hand into his own, observing the raised, perfect circle of a scar on the back of it. It almost matches his tattoo, in a way. He thinks, selfishly, that it’d be poetic if Ed had it covered with an ouroboros, if covering it was something he’d want to do.

Every scar is a reminder of a time Ed had faced the impossible. It’s curious to Greed, even though this new body of his retains old scars. They’re like memories.

But he knows he doesn’t need a memory like that to remember his regrets, or his trauma, or his past.

Even if he did, now he had Ling to remind him.

He lays there—listening to Ed’s gentle breathing—for a long time, lost in thought.


End file.
